However, the traditional newspaper (if there really is such an animal) is threatened by shrinking readership. Television is focused on entertainment, even when it dresses it up as news.. Radio is threatened by satellites. All are confronted with the frictionless distribution enabled by the Internet, the disruptive effects of digital information. None have figured out a business model that pays for content at today's rates.
Thunder is a compression wave and will dissipate with time and distance. Under excellent conditions, thunder can be heard about 12 miles away from the lightning strike. However most of the time conditions arenât this good and we usually canât hear thunder any more than about 5 miles away.
Thunder also sounds different depending on how far away you are from the lightning, what type of discharge it is (intracloud, cloud-to-ground), and which part of the lightning you hear first. You see a bright flash, followed seconds later by a soft, crackling sound, then a loud, startling crash.