what is the loud screeching sound during a heavy thunderstorm?

CamperMan

what is the loud screeching sound during a heavy thunderstorm?

you hear this loud sound like a jet fighter, turbine kind of sound, it lasts for about 2 or 3 seconds, then you see a massive flash of lightning then the loud cracks of thunder...

I have heard this sound 3 times during storms in Germany..

Su Campu

I've never heard of that happening. You can get a hummimg sound as some charge builds up in say a nearby transformer before the lightning bolt, but to be honest - a "large screeching sound"? That sounds a bit far fetched.

Nabber

Maybe the source of the sound is man made and unique to the location you were in Germany?

Never heard what you described.

CamperMan

it's definitely not a humming sound, it's not a man made sound as it's in the countryside, with nobody about...

I have tried to find info on the web...

came across this http://forum.weatherzone.com.au/ubbthreads.php/topics/85801/1

Rougies

Hmm, interesting one. Reminds me of this video where you can hear the buzzing sound as a guy gets hit by a leader in Dublin.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Y09YVcCcNs

I've never heard of reports of 2-3 seconds of loud screeching before a strike, but maybe in big storms there are many more leaders and with more intensity which combine to make the sound you describe? Just a guess.

edit: just thinking there whether that buzzing sound in the vid I linked to was actually the real sound the leader made or was it caused by interference to the camera's electronics. Hmm, more likely the latter I think.

CamperMan

try doing the opposite to whistling.. put your lips in the same way but suck hard..

it's that kind of whistle sound but very loud

willier

I've experienced something similar but not a screeching sound. I got caught outside in the middle of a very intense thunderstorm near home about 4 years ago.
It sounded more like a jet engine moving away from you but the noise got more intense just before the flash. It happened several times before flashes. An interesting experience!

waterways

CamperMan wrote: »

try doing the opposite to whistling.. put your lips in the same way but suck hard..

it's that kind of whistle sound but very loud

I guess you heard lightning whistlers.
http://www.astrosurf.com/luxorion/audiofiles-geomagnetosphere.htm

waterways

CamperMan wrote: »

what is the loud screeching sound during a heavy thunderstorm?

you hear this loud sound like a jet fighter, turbine kind of sound, it lasts for about 2 or 3 seconds, then you see a massive flash of lightning then the loud cracks of thunder...

I have heard this sound 3 times during storms in Germany..

The lightning whistler, you heard, is diconnected from the following massive flash of lightening and the thunder. The whistler, produced by another flash, is a reflection of the ionisphere.

"Rarely lightning strikes can occur high up between clouds rather than reaching down to the Earth. Many of the radio waves generated in such a strike are directed to travel away from the earth and into the ionosphere, where they are guided along and back down to the Earth along magnetic field lines. On this much longer journey, the radio frequencies are very widely dispersed so that the high frequencies arrive at a destination first, followed by successively lower ones to produce a characteristic falling/descending tone that lasts a few seconds and that is known as a whistler. All sferics, tweeks and whistlers are examples of ‘natural radio’ emission that has been converted into a sound signal so we can appreciate them, and they vary on the same timescale as heard. As whistlers are produced by radio waves propagating a long way along the Earth’s magnetic field, they are carried between Northern and Southern hemisphere. Thus a lightning strike in Africa can generate whistlers detected in the UK, or vice versa. The study of whistlers enables scientists to gather information about the earth’s ionosphere and magnetosphere over long distances."
Professor Carolin Crawford, The Sounds of the Universe http://www.gresham.ac.uk/print/2926