Tampa Bay Research Paper

Have you ever wondered why the Tampa Bay area is always so hot and storms every afternoon in the summer time? Living in Tampa my whole life I never thought twice about why every day in the summer time we were hit with an afternoon thunderstorm, it was just common knowledge. Tampa Bay is in Florida, and also known as the lightning capital of the United States of America. Florida is right at the most south eastern portion of the United States and is a peninsula, so the conditions are just right for afternoon thunderstorms. There is much more than just simple evaporation and precipitation going on, there is a list of consistent factors at play that cause the Tampa Bay area to receive these thunderstorms. Some of the factors that cause Tampa Bay to have such a predictable climate are the air masses surrounding the south eastern portion of the United States and cold fronts coming from the west.

First off, to understand the climate of the Tampa Bay area, you must comprehend what is going on around the state of Florida. The first of many weather patterns that effect Tampa Bay’s climate are air masses. “An air mass is a large body of air

According to the University of Illinois, “A cold front is defined as the transition zone where a cold air mass is replacing a warmer air mass. Cold fronts generally move from northwest to southeast. The air behind a cold front is noticeably colder and drier than the air ahead of it. When a cold front passes through, temperatures can drop more than 15 degrees within the first hour.” (University of Illinois, 2017). with Tampa being on the west coast of Florida, we are being hit constantly by the Maritime Tropical air mass, causing warm air to always be over Tampa Bay. When the cold, dry are from the Continental Polar air mass makes its way south east through the nation and eventually to Tampa Florida, it over takes the warm, moist air that is currently over