How far away can you hear lightning?

[vchimpanzee]

I started this topic wondering how far lightning can go at night, but I'm wondering about daytime.

I went out to the car and turned on the radio for Mike Huckabee. There are no power lines in the parking lot, so despite the car having an inferior AM antenna compared to my older car, I usually get a listenable signal on a 1000-watt station 30 miles to the northwest. Yes, as far as I know, that's the only Mike Huckabee station around.

There was no sign on a thunderstorm anywhere around, but I kept hearing lightning. I forgot to check the radar online when I went back inside and I don't even remember if I saw vidoetape of the radar that night.

I'm hearing lightning right now and I'm 20 miles southeast of the station, with no sign a thunderstorm is around.

 

[BobOnTheJob]

Fascinating question...I've looked at the radar & seen thunderstorms produce audible lightning static on a clear daytime frequency at greater than 100 miles. I'd bet there's will be bigger numbers than that quoted...

 

[nd2023]

Depends on the frequency. 530 in the day has lightning static when there's a storm within 150 miles, the sky can be blue and you'd hear lightning. 1690 has lightning static within 40 miles or less. In the night, you can hear lightning from the tropics, most of that constant lightning just drowns out into static. But you can hear distinct lightning static for 300 miles at night. A rule of thumb is that if you hear lightning over an AM station, the storm is about twice the distance from you and the station. So, hearing lightning on a station 20 miles away would mean there's a thunderstorm about 40 miles or less away. If it's a local 50,000 watt station, you won't hear lightning even if you can see lightning. Of course, AM IBOC is useless if there's a thunderstorm within 100 miles. If the thunderstorm is over water, the lightning static propagates further, just like an AM station would. I could hear lightning in the background of FM static or a weak FM station when listening to the stereo hiss, but that's only when there's a close thunderstorm. When TV was analog, I could see lightning static on channels 2-13. Now that it's digital, I rarely lose the signal of a digital VHF station, UHF is unaffected. Lightning may be millions of watts, but those watts are spread out on all frequencies. An AM station has its power only within 10 kHz.

 

[stormy01]

Potentially thousands of miles. I recall many years ago on a winter night that I was hearing static crashes on short wave radio and upon checking the weather map, there were no thunderstorms anywhere in the continental U.S., so the storms had to be at least in a tropical region, so at least 2,000 miles from northern Illinois. See this for a possible explanation: http://www.aa5tb.com/longwave.html

 

[ddsparxx]

I could hear faint lightning static crashes up to 150 miles during the daytime on a good radio with a big ferrite antenna, on 530kHz, especially then there's no RF interference around. But when I tune to a weak AM station on the low side of the dial, the lightning range may actually increase.

 

[LibertyNT]

This is one of the reasons why i love AM radio. I always know if there will be lightening.
Ive heard lightening crashes on the radio when it was cloudy out but never when its been sunny. I have Heard Lightening crashes OVER a 50,000 watt station. But the lightening was close and frequent.

 

[gar hi]

During the winter through late spring when it's dry here, I can hear lightning static at night from frontal systems hundreds of miles away up north.

 

[pqgeorge]

I generally use 530 kHz as a sort of barometer for any incoming thunderstorm activity. I was not disappointed today when a "pop-up" thunderstorm started showing up on the "Mighty 5-30" about 60 minutes before the "blessed" event. We got hit around 11:00 AM here in Easton, MA. (It caused a quick power surge where I work.) Generally during the daylight hours, if you start hearing static crashes off in the distance on 530, that thunderstorm is probably about 75 to 100 miles away. At night, all bets are off in terms of how far the RF of a lightning bolt can carry on the area of 530 or any HF frequency. Static crashes are nothing more than RF being generated by lightning. Those static crashes can propagate just as well as the RF generated by a broadcast transmitter. Check out 160 meters during the summer months. The static crashes can really overpower even the engineered ham radio station.

 

[nd2023]

You could just look at the weather radar to see if a storm is coming.
The Mighty 530, the "All Thunderstorms, All The Time" station will only tell you if there's a thunderstorm within 150 miles, it won't tell you where or how fast it's moving.

 

[crainbebo]

Last night, got thunderstorms on 530 and possibly 540. I was trying to hear for some far away TIS stations, but I heard a lot of static crashes. This was on a Kenwood radio in my boat. I might have heard some on 1610 AM as well. Heard lots of static over a TIS channel only about 15 miles away.

-crainbebo

 

[Len14043]

As some of the posters said, you can hear lightning on 530Khz a few hundred miles during the day. On 1710 khz, you can hear lightning on most summer nights - even if there are no thunderstorms within 1000 miles. A few years ago, I parked near WLW's tower to see lightning hit it numerous times during an intense storm. The signal was strong enough that you couldn't hear the static crash unless the tower was actually hit. Some of the hits knocked the station off the air for a few seconds. I was startled when a bolt exploded within 50' of my car instead of the nearby tower. As an aside, WLW puts a fairly strong harmonic on 1400khz. It's almost as though WLW has a graveyard station on 1400 in the northern Cincinnati suburbs.

 

[radioman148]

As some of the posters said, you can hear lightning on 530Khz a few hundred miles during the day. On 1710 khz, you can hear lightning on most summer nights - even if there are no thunderstorms within 1000 miles. A few years ago, I parked near WLW's tower to see lightning hit it numerous times during an intense storm. The signal was strong enough that you couldn't hear the static crash unless the tower was actually hit. Some of the hits knocked the station off the air for a few seconds. I was startled when a bolt exploded within 50' of my car instead of the nearby tower. As an aside, WLW puts a fairly strong harmonic on 1400khz. It's almost as though WLW has a graveyard station on 1400 in the northern Cincinnati suburbs.

You're very brave to sit near a radio tower in a thunderstorm.

 

[K4WRF]

Considering Schumanns resonance phenomenon, a function of the distance between the earth and the ionosphere which acts like a cavity at about 7.0hz; the electromagnetic field produced from a single strike goes all the way around the earth. At one time, NASA had an online lightning receiver down in Huntsville Alabama that you could hear lightning strikes from around the globe. I can’t seem to find it now, it has been several years.

w/