People experience acoustic waves in all aspects of their life.
What most people do not realize is that another type of wave, the gravity wave, is also generated during such thunderstorms. Whereas acoustic waves have, for the most part, audible frequencies, gravity waves have frequencies far below our threshold for hearing and so go largely unnoticed by the community. However, the atmospheric physics community takes much interest in these waves because of their profound influence on the upper atmosphere. The complete spectrum of waves is known as acoustic-gravity w aves. One of the amazing facts of gravity wave propagation concerns how far they can propagate and still remain coherent.