ABSTRACT
Severe electrical storms produce a variety of acoustic emissions. The acoustic emissions can be broadly divided into two categories: those that are related to electrical processes and those that either do not depend upon cloud electricity or no correlations with electrical changes have been observed. This chapter confines the discussion to the acoustic waves generated by the hot channels in the lightning process. It examines the complex nature of the formation of individual pulses from hot lightning channels and how a tortuous line source arranges and directs the pulses to form a thunder signature. The chapter treats the cloud particles as sources of acoustic scattering; there are other and probably more important ways in which these aerosol components interact with the acoustic waves. It discusses that the cloud aerosols interact with the acoustic waves in some different ways depending upon their size relative to the amplitude of air motion of the sound.
