Having occurred nearly 4000 kilometres away, you'd be forgiven for believing it wouldn't be possible to hear the eruption of a Tongan volcano in the Bathurst region.
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But the science and mathematics may suggest otherwise, and with residents from Wattle Flat, Billywillinga and Mt Rankin reporting an unusually loud sound around 6.10pm Saturday [three hours after the eruption 65 kilometres north of Tonga's main island], so might eyewitness accounts.
After noticing the sound at his Wattle Flat property, astrophotographer Niall MacNeill crunched the calculations regarding the speed of sound, and deduced there may be some plausibility behind the logic.
"Tonga is around 3700 kilometres away, and if we consider the speed sound, which is approximately 1235 kilometres an hour, it provides a logical explanation for what residents heard, as the eruption occurred at 5.10pm Tonga time [3.10pm in eastern Australia]," Mr MacNeill said.
"I initially thought it was just me, but I soon found many people in the Wattle Flat Community Noticeboard Facebook group were talking about a loud noise that sounded like an explosion, with people in Mudgee and Orange even suggesting they heard it."
While there was isolated storm activity around the region on Saturday, it had mostly subsided by the early evening, ruling out thunder.
Astronomer Ray Pickard also noticed the sound from his Billywillinga residence as he was preparing to take advantage of clearing skies for a imaging session at his observatory.
"I heard a series of rumbles which sounded like thunder, but the skies were clear and, after checking the lightning tracker, found there was no storm activity within 100 kilometres," Mr Pickard said.
"The ash cloud from the eruption is large enough to cover the entire island of Tasmania, and considering the sound was heard in multiple countries and detected as far as 9000 kilometres away, this is likely the loudest volcanic explosion in the Asia-Pacific region since Krakatoa in 1883."
Experts are claiming Saturday's eruption in Tonga, between the small islands of Hunga Tonga and Hunga Ha'apai, generated the energy equivalent of 1000 Hiroshima atomic bombs.
Mr Pickard suggested many may have mistaken the sound for thunder, as there had been storm activity earlier in the day and may have been lost in cities amongst urban sounds.
In addition, Mr MacNeill suggested altitude may have also played a part.
"Both Wattle Flat and Mt Rankin are 900 metres above sea level, and I'm pretty confident that eruption in Tonga is the explosion residents heard."
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