Meaning of heat lightning | Babel Free

Definitions

1. Lightning and/or thunder which the observer attributes to heat rather than a storm (e.g. because the storm/rain is too distant to be seen, or because there is no rain, as with dry lighting).
   uncountable
2. Visible lightning that occurs too far away for the resulting thunder to be audible by the observer.
   uncountable
3. Thunder that is heard without lightning being seen by the observer; heat thunder.
   uncommon, uncountable

Equivalents

Examples

“Joel Brinkley, a schoolteacher, who was a child in the 1950s, recalled a similar feeling during this era: "It seems surreal now. Every summer, when I heard heat lightning over the city and the sky would light⟳ up, I was convinced it was all over. My whole childhood was built on the notion that the Soviets were the real threat."”

“The beginning of a watery diarrheal event is said to be marked by a great deal⟳ of noise, characterized as […] rumbling (tzilelet 'rumbling sound⟳ of heat lightning in the rainy season'), […]”

“The typical range at which thunder can be heard is around 24 km [...] Often, people mistakenly call⟳ lightning whose thunder is too far away to be heard "heat lightning," suggesting that the lightning somehow owes its existence merely to the heat of the day and not to a thunderstorm. Nonsense. "Heat lightning" is simply distant lightning whose thunder cannot be heard.”

“THE RAIN⟳ FINALLY CAME FROM THE DARK GREY SKIES, SOFT AND TEMPTING AT FIRST, WITH THE SOUND⟳ OF HEAT LIGHTNING HOVERING OVER THE SKYSCRAPERS! [image is of a city being rained on, no lightning visible]”

“Our windows were open⟳, and inside the wind and rumble of heat lightning, I could hear⟳ Albert's horses nickering in the darkness.”

CEFR level