Well, a Typhoon is good for about Mach 1.8, so exceeding the speed of sound gets you there a lot sooner.

Indeed, sonic booms are banned over the US land-mass as well, so those many-time-a-week bangs are a thing of the past here, as well.

It's not quite like thunder, as thunder is more of a distant thing. A sonic boom is the shock wave itself passing over one. Well, maybe it's like the thunder of a lightning strike at very close range. Very sharp rise and fall time. And generally louder than thunder. Like loud enough that you'd think maybe the plate-glass windows will shatter.