Well just the lightning, but we don’t get too many thunderstorms, so it is really nice to see a real one approaching. Perhaps with some ultra low frequency microphones we could detect the thunder from far away as well. I’m told that those can even detect erupting vulcanoes a 1000 km away.
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Guess you’re thinking a the shake network ??
Blitzortung has been looking in this but seems the results for lightning isn’t conclusive and it is way more difficult to isolate a thunder in all the sound and even worse to triangulate position. Maybe one day …
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I didn’t read everything on the shake network but from first looks I get the impression that they use seismologic sensors. They do pick up infrasounds but I have no idea about the frequency range. The sensors I was informed about are barometric sensors. A small array of them is used to detect the direction of the infrasound. I can imagine that this has a higher frequency response then the shake method.
Any way it wasn’t a too serious remark, it was the result of my brain triggering on the phrase thunder and lightning.
Thunder is caused by the sudden increase in pressure and temperature which produces rapid expansion of the air. It’s not easy to determine the exact cause.