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From the ground you obviously cannot hear any sound from a developing cumulus cloud, no matter how vigorous it is. BUT: Are there sound waves generated, e.g. at the cloud edges where there is a lot of wind shear, or within the cloud with adjacent updrafts and downdrafts?

Google yields some hits about trumpet sounds from clouds in Israel, but that seems like a hoax. I am also not talking about pelting rain or wind in trees, this is purely about noise within clouds.

It is a bit counterintuitive to imagine that a thunderstorm is totally silent (apart from the occasional flash/thunder, of couse). But then, maybe it is?

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    $\begingroup$ Are you asking if wind is noisy? I can tell you from extensive experience that humans can hear wind, and there is pretty much always wind in a planetary atmosphere. So yes, you could expect the regions around clouds to be noisy, though it has nothing to do with the clouds themselves. $\endgroup$
    – Asher
    Commented Jun 8, 2017 at 17:44
  • $\begingroup$ Wind itself is not noisy. The noise we experience (whooshing, whirring, whispering swishing) at ground level comes from the obstacles the wind interacts with. If you travel in a hot-air ballon, there is silence around the ballon. Why? Because turbulence near the ballon does not generate sound. Oh, and wind passing the ears also does not count because it is the ears that are generating swirls we perceive as noise. $\endgroup$
    – Metalbeard
    Commented Jun 9, 2017 at 6:02
  • $\begingroup$ that argument seems rather inane. How do you categorize which pressure changes count as "noise" and which don't? Why dies thunder count, but not turbulence? $\endgroup$
    – Asher
    Commented Jun 9, 2017 at 6:47
  • $\begingroup$ It is the other way round: I am asking about noise/sound generated by turbulence, which is most vigorous in thunderstorm clouds. Is there any audible sound (i.e. pressure fluctuations in the audible part of the spectrum) within (or at the boundaries of) a thunderstorm cloud? I am excluding flash/thunder and noise generated by obstacles and the ground, because that has nothing to do with the turbulence within the atmosphere. $\endgroup$
    – Metalbeard
    Commented Jun 9, 2017 at 7:35
  • $\begingroup$ you've already said in your previous comment that turbulence does not generate sound, so what are you actually asking? $\endgroup$
    – Asher
    Commented Jun 9, 2017 at 7:42

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In general, turbulence will create some sound. For example, if we consider the turbulence generated by a jet, the main convective components of the turbulence will be silent, but supersonic phase speeds might generate some noise. See here for a study on this subject.

If we restrict ourselves to thunderstorms, lightning, and sprites, then there seems to be much research conducted concerning infrasound from the latter two phenomena--see here and here. The question of whether this infrasound from lightning storms can be detected by native fauna can be found here-- this is where I obtained the previous two citations. A more interesting study (which you might be more interested in) concerns the modeling of sound from vortices in thunderstorms. So, yes, it appears as if the turbulence and vortices in a thunderstorm do generate sound.

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  • $\begingroup$ Joshua, I haven't thought of tornadoes. Infra-sound from "normal" thunderstorms seems to be always connected with lightning (no sound from the 2 observed hail storms in that paper), whereas the tornado funnel is a real sound source (up to?) several hundred hertz. Over longer distances, the infra (around 1 Hz) part remains. So, the inverse conclusion - no sound from "normal" thunderstorms - may be true. Thanks a lot for the references! If nothing serious happens, the bounty will be heading in your direction :) $\endgroup$
    – Metalbeard
    Commented Jun 12, 2017 at 8:47
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I am listening to sound coming from a cloud as I type this. That is what brought me to this site. And, I might add, I am inside the house (with the doors open).

I live in Brazil and this is the second time I've heard a noisy large cumulo numbus cloud. The sound is continuous and the last time I heard such a cloud, the sound was audible for over 20 minutes. It sounds similar, in tone and volume, to a turbojet airliner flying over at medium-high altitude (about 20,000ft) and is just constant.

I'm guessing the sound is caused by severe winds within the cloud though I've not been able to find anthing about it on the internet (tried last time I heard one). I can't imagine what else could cause such a sound.

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