ZammoUK

Thanks everyone, I really appreciate the advice and information. Amazing how loud mother mature can be sometimes. It was quite amazing too to see the contrast between the huge black clouds and the blue sky next to it. It is a shame I wasn't awake for the lightning as it would have been interesting to see where it struck.

Hope people don't mind me posting here, I am not actually a follower of weather and this is my first post. The reason I am posting is quite trivial and will probably make me sound like a hypercondriac or paranoid, but I will ask anyway I was woken up this morning by the loudest noise I have heard, it was thunder, a sudden loud clap lasting perhaps 5 seconds or so (might be longer but I was asleep, ha). I sleep in a wood chalet and my head was around a meter from a open window. I didn't automatically cover my ears but it was hell of a shock and extremely loud. I have heard lots of thunder in my life but never like this, it was like a bomb had exploded or something. Obviously the fact it woke me up and I was half asleep could of magnified this effect. I am just concerned whether this could of done any damage to my ears ? I know it makes me sound paranoid, but I feel a bit like I have a pressure feeling in my right ear with lowered sound, but I know that could be me causing that as I am perhaps over listening too much and it could be like this all the time normally. I was asleep during the lightning but my parents (who were a street away) said there was about 4 seconds delay making it around a mile or less in distance. Afterwards the heavens opened and when I peaked outside there was the blackest clouds I have ever seen, right next to pure blue sky, weird. How likely is the noise to have caused damage ? Or would I need to be outside and have prolonged exposure ? My ears didn't ring and I didn't notice any problem at the time, but since then I have the above "issues", but like I say that could be me listening too much and straining my ears trying to hear if there is any difference I have had annoyances with my ears for years (such as tinnitus) as I used to be a DJ so I am paranoid about further damage happening to them. Obviously I don't expect anyone here to be a doctor or audiologist, just wondered really about thunder noise levels and the likely hood of one clap doing any ear damage in the above circumstances. Thanks all