We want to break down one of the biggest myths when it comes to lightning.

What You Need To Know

  • Heat lightning doesn't exist

  • It's normal lightning that you see in a thunderstorm

  • You can't hear the thunder because the storm is too far away

Many people are familiar with the term "heat lightning." It’s the myth that lightning occurs in hot and humid conditions in an area where there is no rain or thunder.

This is a big misconception. Heat lightning received its name because it is mostly observed during the warmer months when many people stay outside longer because of warmer temperatures.

Heat lightning has nothing to do with heat, and it actually doesn’t even exist. It’s just normal cloud-to-ground or intra-cloud lightning in a thunderstorm.

This term has been so misused that the National Weather Service put out a definition for heat lightning to set the record straight.

The reason you can’t hear the thunder with the lightning is because the storm is too far away.

This lightning is typically associated with large thunderstorms that rise tens of thousands of feet into the atmosphere. With the thunderstorm being that huge, you can see these storms from over 100 miles away!

But, you can only hear thunder from about 10 miles away from a flash of lightning.

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