Hey Ray! Heat Lightning: Fact Or Fiction?

PITTSBURGH (KDKA) -- Heat lightning, you know, those summer time flickers of light in the distance that have no thunder.

We've heard that term forever, so is heat lightning actually a real thing?

KDKA Meteorologist Ray Petelin breaks it down for us:

Here's the deal.

Heat lightning is actually a regular, old thunderstorm that is too far away to be heard!

Light can travel at a whopping 186,291 MILES per second, where sound can only travel 1088 FEET per second.

The sound of thunder maxes out at about 10 miles.

At night, it is much easier to see the light from distant thunderstorms, even if they are too far away to hear.

So, the idea of heat lightning is sorta fake, since it is just another thunderstorm.

If you want to see for yourself, get the KDKA weather app, and the next time you see heat lightning, you can see that there is a thunderstorm in the distance on the app's interactive radar.

Also, knowing the speed of light and speed of sound, if you see lightning, start counting in seconds.

Then stop counting once you hear the thunder.

Take that number, divide by 5, and that is how many miles the thunderstorm is away from you.

If that number gets shorter, it is moving toward you.

If that number increases, it is moving away.

Obviously, if you can hear thunder, you are close enough to a storm to be struck by lightning, so it's best to get inside.