Dear Tom,
When lightning strikes so close to my house that the crash of thunder occurs almost simultaneously with the flash, there is sometimes a faint click. What is that click?
—John Sestak, Chicago
Dear John,
Lightning expert Ron Holle in Oro Valley, Ariz., tells us any source of such a sound requires being within a few hundred yards of the ground strike point. Holle explains that “The clicks may have been static discharge from upward streamers from the house, the ground, or other nearby objects; these are released just when a flash strikes the Earth’s surface. Or, there may have been a buildup of static charge on parts of the house just before the strike. Sometimes on (AM) radios, you can hear this buildup as a whine or series of clicks until the flash strikes the ground.”
