Psst. Hear that, smarty pants?
You know what that sound means.
Why, of course, it means a thunderstorm is coming.
Maybe not right outside your window, but somewhere in the world.
Can you guess approximately how many storms are happening right now?
Is it 50, 100, or 500?
More? Thor? The answer is, approximately 2 ,000 thunderstorms are happening at any given time.
Every year, the Earth is hit by an estimated 16 million thunderstorms. And I bring the thunder.
Why, it's Thor. What are you doing here?
Battling inside this storm.
There's no rest for the mighty Thor, Thor, the God of Thunder.
No kidding. You're in, like, ten movies a year.
Shh, shh, shh, shh, shh, shh, shh, shh, shh, shh.
I'm not that Thor. I'm the mythological god, a character worshipped hundreds of years ago by Vikings.
Plus, we're not trying to get sued by Marvel here.
I see. But I still carry a hammer.
Uh -huh. And I'm just as good -looking.
Right. But do you actually cause thunderstorms?
Of course! Smarty -pants, what do you think?
Does Thor cause thunderstorms?
And if not, how do thunderstorms form?
And what exactly is thunder?
And how can you tell how far away lightning is striking?
Join me and our legally safe, non -Marvel affiliated Thor Thor, as we take another big whiff of science on Who Smarted?
Who Smarted? Who Smart?
Is it you? Is it me?
Is it science? Or history?
Listen up, everyone.
We make smarting lots of fun on Who Smarted?
Hi, Smarty Pants. It's the trusty narrator, the host of Who's Smarted?
First, a big welcome to all our new listeners.
Welcome to the Smarty Family.
Here's a nice five -star review from one of you.
Hi, trusty. This is my new favorite podcast. I listen in the car with my sister and even before bed.
I'm telling all my friends, too.
Sean P. Ohio. Thanks, Sean.
And that's a great idea.
So, Smarty Fam, would you mind doing me a favor?
Tell one friend or another parent or an educator today about Who Smarted?
Because the only thing that's better than listening to Who Smarted is listening to Who Smarted with a friend.
Okay, Smarty Pants, you're probably very familiar with the sound of thunder.
My dog sure is, which is why she's hiding under the table.
It's okay, Luna. It's just a sound effect.
I better put on her thunder shirt.
There. Feel better?
Good. Where were we, Smarty Pants?
Ah, I remember. Have you ever heard thunder and wondered, what exactly is that sound I'm hearing?
Tis me, Thor, riding a goat -drawn chariot across the sky.
Yeah, I'm not so sure about that.
Smarty Pants, what do you think creates thunder?
Is it A, Thor's hammer?
B, Thor's axe? Or C, a rapid expansion of heated air triggered by the mutual attraction of positive and negative charges.
While I sometimes wield an axe, my favorite weapon is still my trusty hammer.
When the giants attack Asgard. C, Thor.
The answer is C. C?
What do you mean, C?
He means I bring the thunder.
Holy smokes, it looks like someone is trying to impersonate Thor.
Maybe I should get my lawyers.
Excuse me, if anything, you're impersonating me.
Me? Trying to be you?
That's funny. I don't get it.
While you come from a made -up story meant to explain how thunder works, I'm the one that actually makes thunder happen.
The name's Lizzie. Lizzie Lightning.
Wow, what a strange turn of events.
Also, Lizzie's right, Smarty Pants.
Lightning is actually the sole creator of thunder.
Which you'll find during a lightning storm.
Or thunderstorm! Same difference.
The important thing is, for this kind of storm to happen, you need three basic ingredients.
Let's see. Courage, a magical belt called Miegingjord, and of course, my hammer, Mjolnir.
Um, not quite. Wait, Smarty Pants, what is the first ingredient needed to create thunder?
Here's a hint. That's right.
Water or moisture. And since most of the Earth is covered in water, moisture isn't hard to find.
The sun's heat evaporates it and it hangs around in the air, especially on sticky, humid days.
And speaking of heat, the second ingredient is instability.
You mean like when I trip over an evil serpent I'm fighting?
No, I mean when you have warm, moist air near the ground and cool, dry air above it.
That's why you tend to see more thunderstorms on hot, humid days, especially during the summer.
And then comes the third ingredient, lift. Ha ha, like lifting my hammer.
I mean something that causes the warm air below to rise up or lift. The sun's heat on the Earth's surface can push air up.
So can an upward slope like a hill or mountain.
The lift can also be caused by the collision of two different types of air at an invisible, moving boundary called a front.
You may have heard a weather forecast mention a front.
This is Shet Nickerson with a special weather report.
There's a big cold front coming in, so look out for lots of storms. You're going to want to stay indoors, preferably with some cookies.
In all these cases, the water in the warm air lifts up and then cools down.
Do you know what that forms?
Water giants? No. Smarty Pants, any guesses?
What does water form in the sky?
That's right. Clouds.
That's what I meant.
Giant clouds. As the moisture rises higher, it makes the clouds taller.
Ooh. Smarty Pants, how high up do you think a thunderstorm cloud can go?
Is it A, 10 miles high, B, 6 miles high, or C, 2 miles high?
The answer is A, a thundercloud can reach up to 10 miles or 16 kilometers into the air.
That's nearly twice the height of Mount Everest, the world's tallest mountain.
At this point, there is a lot of stuff going on inside those clouds.
Like ferocious battles.
More like ferocious winds up and down.
Water droplets rising up into the colder air, freeze and then come down.
Hitting other droplets going up.
Through a complicated process, these collisions create a slew of charged particles, Ready to zap?
Smartypants, you may remember from our electricity episode, there are two types of charged particles, positive and negative.
Are you positive? If you mean, am I certain, then yes, I'm positive.
But in the cloud, I'm negatively charged.
In thunderclouds, positive charges rise to the top, while negative charges sit at the bottom.
Eventually, there's a buildup of negative charges, and they gotta find someplace to go.
Like when you really have to pee?
Uh, actually, yeah.
Kind of like that. As you were saying.
Yes, so, negative and positive charges really like each other.
They're always trying to connect.
Aww. And when they do, that's when you see me, lightning.
You've got all these negative charges sitting at the bottom of a cloud, Fighting hard to connect with positive charges, sometimes they find a positive part of a cloud, and that's when you see lightning shoot through the sky.
But do you know what else has positive charges?
My hammer! Sure, but that's not all.
Smarty Pants, besides clouds, what else can create the positive charges the negative charges are looking for?
Did you say the Earth?
Great job if you got that, Smarty Pants.
It's actually everything on Earth, including people.
When the strong negative charges in the thundercloud move over the ground, any positive charges move up, which is why anything on Earth can be struck by lightning.
Usually, these negative charges find the shortest path to connect, which is why tall objects like trees, skyscrapers, and mountains get struck the most. But really, these charges can meet up anywhere.
And when they do, a whole lot of energy is released.
Ah! Whoa, Lizzie, that's some noise.
Thanks. Smarty Pants, why is lightning so loud?
What do you think is happening?
She's trying to drown me out and steal my thunder?
No. Believe it or not, it's because something super powerful is happening.
It's because the sky is exploding.
Whoa. Within a fraction of a second, lightning makes the air around it five times hotter than the sun, causing it to burst out with a big shock wave. But after the lightning strikes, the air quickly cools and contracts, creating more noise and rumbles.
Sounds you associate with thunder.
But wait. If this all happens in an instant, why does lightning seem to strike seconds before the thunder?
That's because light travels through the air a million times faster than sound.
So if you're far away from lightning, you'll see it before you hear it.
But have you ever wondered just how far away a lightning strike is?
Absolutely! Smarty Pants get ready to learn how to figure out how far away lightning is right after this quick break hey Smarty Pants trusty here what if your watch could call your parents text your friends play games and still help you ace the school day say hi to pinwheel the smart watch that's built just for kids whether you're walking to school riding your bike or hanging out with friends pinwheel We'll lets you stay in touch with the people that you care about and blocks everyone else.
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And when it's time to focus, your watch knows thanks to custom schedules that your parents set right now, you can get awesome deals on watches for back to school plus free shipping and returns.
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That's P -I -N -W -H -E -E -L dot com slash smarted and gear up with the coolest watch made just for you.
Now back to Who Smarted?
So smarty pants, you feel the rain, you hear the thunder.
But how can you tell if the lightning you saw is far away or up close?
Baa -boom, baa -boom, baa -boom!
Um, Thor, what are you doing?
Ah, bringing the thunder.
But we just spent the whole episode explaining how Lizzy Lightning causes thunder.
Hey, I could still pretend, right?
I mean, there's lots of great stories about me fighting beasts and whatnot.
Can we just imagine that's happening during a lightning storm?
arm. It's way more fun than imagining charged particles.
Thor has a point. While thunderstorms are normally not a big deal, especially if you're safe inside, they can be a little scary.
Especially if you're a doggy.
It's okay, Luna. So thinking of them as an epic battle between mythological gods and monsters can make them less scary and more fun.
It's what the ancient people did So, every time you hear thunder Imagine it's Thor striking down an enemy Eat my hammer!
That's cool, but how can you tell how far away lightning is striking?
I was just getting to that Thor, you can help us demonstrate By the power of Asgard, I shall I'm going to need your help too, narrator Sure thing Okay, smarty pants.
In just a moment, I'll do my lightning scream.
Pretend that's the moment in a storm when you see the lightning.
At that point, Drusty, I want you to start counting off seconds.
Got it. And then Thor, at some point, you make a thunder sound.
Aha! So I will be bringing the thunder.
Sure... Smarty pants, when you hear Thor make a thunder sound, call out the second the narrator has counted up to.
Okay. Is everybody ready?
Here we go. Ah ha! One, two, three, four, five.
Ba -boom, ba -boom! Smartypants, what number did the thunder sound at?
I got five. Is that what you got, Thor?
Oh, I wasn't counting.
Five is good. Good.
So because sound travels at a speed of about one -fifth of a mile per second, take whatever number you count up to and divide it by five.
In this case, five divided by five equals one.
So the lightning in this experiment struck one mile away.
If you use the metric system, divide by three to get kilometers.
You can't divide five by three easily, but six divided by three is two, so you can just estimate the lightning was a little under two kilometers away.
Wow, that's cool. But what if you don't hear anything after seeing the lightning?
If you see lightning, but don't hear it, that just means it's far away.
While light can travel great distances, the sound of thunder only travels about 25 miles.
And even at that point, you can barely hear it.
So, if you don't hear a sound, you can just assume the lightning was over 25 miles or 40 kilometers away.
I heard that. Actually, that was my stomach. Anyone want a cookie?
Chet Dickerson will be right over, trusty.
A thunderous shout out to Mark in New York.
You told us you love how we explain complicated things in a fun and simple way.
Well, that's music to our ears, Mark.
Thanks so much for smarting with us.
This episode, Thunderstorms, was written by Dave Beaudry and voiced by Chris Okawa, Kierna Conner, Adam Tex -Davis, and Jerry Kolber.
Technical direction and sound design by Josh Hahn.
Who Smarted? is recorded and mixed at the Relic Room Studios.
Our associate producer is Max Thunderbolt Kamasky.
The theme song is by Brian Stormy Suarez, with lyrics written and performed by Adam Tex -Davis.
Who Smarted? was created and produced by Adam Tex -Davis and Jerry Kolber.
This has been an Atomic Entertainment production.
