Why does thunder and lightning not necessarily rain?

Thunder is a discharge behavior caused by too many charged ions in the air.

The formation of rain is called water cloud, which is composed of liquid water droplets (including supercooled water droplets). If the conditions for cloud droplets to grow into raindrops are met in the water cloud, and the raindrops have a certain falling speed, then it is rain or Mao Mao rain that falls. Clouds composed of ice crystals are called ice cloud, and clouds composed of water droplets (mainly supercooled water droplets) and ice crystals are called mixed clouds. Ice crystals or snowflakes falling from ice cloud or mixed clouds fall into the gas layer above 0℃, and after melting, they also fall to the ground as raindrops, forming rainfall.

Summary: thunder and rain have their own reasons ~

So it may not rain when it thunders!

Thunder appeared in the thunderstorm clouds. Generally speaking, the thicker the cloud is, the more rainfall will be, while it will not rain or seldom rain at the edge of the cloud. In addition, the atmosphere in which sound propagates is very large, so if we are at the edge of the cloud, we will find the phenomenon of dry thunder and no rain.