Thunder Storm

THUNDER STORM

A thunderstorm, also known as an electrical storm, a lightning storm, or simply a storm is a form of weather characterized by the presence of lightning and its acoustic effect on the Earth's atmosphere known as thunder. The meteorologically-assigned cloud type associated with the thunderstorm is the cumulonimbus. Thunderstorms are usually accompanied by strong winds, heavy rain and sometimes snow, hail, or no precipitation at all. Those which cause hail to fall are known as hailstorms. Thunderstorms may line up in a series or rainband, known as a squall line. Strong or severe thunderstorms may rotate, known as supercells. While most thunderstorms move with the mean wind flow through the layer of the troposphere in which they occupy, vertical wind shear causes a deviation in their course at a right angle to the wind shear direction.
Thunderstorms can generally form and develop in any geographic location, perhaps most frequently within areas located at mid-latitude when warm moist air collides with cooler air. Thunderstorms are responsible for the development and formation of many severe weather phenomena. Thunderstorms, and the phenomena that occurs along with it, can produce numerous risks and hazards to populations and landscapes. Damages that result from thunderstorms are mainly inflicted by downburst winds, large hailstones, and flash flooding caused by heavy precipitation. Stronger thunderstorm cells are capable of producing tornadoes and waterspouts.
There are four types of thunderstorms: single cell, multicell cluster, multicell lines, and supercells. Supercell thunderstorms are the strongest and the most associated with severe weather phenomena. Mesoscale convective systems formed by favorable vertical wind shear within the tropics and subtropics are responsible for the development of hurricanes. Dry thunderstorms, with no precipitation, can cause the outbreak of wildfires with the heat generated from the cloud-to-ground lightning that accompanies them. A variety of methods are used to study thunderstorms, such as weather radar, weather stations, and video photography. Past civilizations held various myths concerning thunderstorms and their development as late as the Eighteenth Century. Other than within the Earth's atmosphere, thunderstorms have also been observed on Jupiter and Venus.

TYPE OF THUNDERSTORM

Single Cell Storms
Typically last 20-30 minutes. Pulse storms can produce severe weather elements such as downbursts, hail, some heavy rainfall and occasionally weak tornadoes.
Multicell Cluster Storms
A group of cells moving as a single unit, with each cell in a different stage of the thunderstorm life cycle. Multicell storms can produce moderate size hail, flash floods and weak tornadoes.

Causes of Thunder Storm

Thunderstorms are caused when the weather is very hot and humid. Warm air rises and then cools again very quickly, which in turn produces thunder clouds. Inside these thunderclouds, the violent movement of air causes water droplets and ice to bump against one another, knocking charged electrons from the ice, producing a build up of static electrical charge. The huge amount of energy is finally released in the form of thunder and lighting.
The sound of the thunder we hear on the ground is produced when a strike of lighting produces a huge amount of heat. The lighting has a temperature of around 30,000 degrees centigrade and the air around the lighting expands very quickly. The rapid expansion of air causes the crashing thunder sound. When we get lighting it strikes the ground because the opposite charges of static build up within the cloud and it has to go somewhere. Lighting is looking for something to connect with to discharge its electrical charge. This is why some people get struck by lighting, because basically they are in the wrong place at the wrong time.