A single bolt of lightning can heat the air around it to roughly five times the temperature of the surface of the Sun, and it is the violent expansion of that superheated air that creates the crack of thunder. - Space Daily

The US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration puts the temperature of a lightning channel at about 30,000 degrees Celsius, and states plainly that this is roughly five times hotter than the surface of the Sun, which sits near 5,500 degrees. The rapid…