The Digital Ceraunoscope: Synthetic Thunder and Lightning, Part 1

For pt.1 see ibid., March/April (2000). Previously, the author discussed his design for a digital ceraunoscope: an ancient machine designed to simulate thunder and lightning. He talked about how cloud-to-ground lightning formed and how to write a program to generate synthetic lightning strokes that matches real data gathered for the Apollo space program. The article focuses on making thunder an integral part of the simulation. Using a combined lightning and thunder model, we can create coordinated, unified lightning and thunder, starting from either phenomenon to produce the other. It will look and sound as we wish, start and end as we wish, and basically become another digital tool for us to direct freely: a digital ceraunoscope.