Thunderstorms often happen in unstable, humid atmospheres in the troposphere. Unstable atmospheres are when warm air is trapped at the surface with cool air aloft. A stable atmosphere is when there is warm air aloft and cool air is at the surface. Thunderstorms are known for creating thunder and lightning. Lightning is caused by the separation of charges. The top of cumulonimbus clouds are freezing with ice crystals moving around. The collision of the ice crystals creates an electrical charge. In the colder areas of a cloud, which is the top, the charges are positive. The negative charges make up the base of the cloud. This creates lightning within the cloud. The surface of the earth has positive charges and because positive charges are attracted to negative charges, it creates are spark of lighting between the ground and the base of the cloud. The sound of thunder that follows a flash of lightning is from the heat of the lightning. The crack that you hear is air expanding. The sound comes from the vibrations that lightening causes. The reason we hear thunder after we see lightenin...
A study was done to understand the effects of thundersnow within lake effect snow events which took place between 1995 through 2007. What the study observed was that the majority of cloud to ground lightning occurred in lake effect storms during the late fall and early winter months. Twenty-seven percent of storms however occurred between the January through March period. BUFKIT was used in this study to determine the environment that would be required for lightning to occur in these storms. “The presence of the layer from -10 to -25 C within the predicted lake-effect cloud layer (lake-induced LCL to EL analyzed within BUFKIT) appears to be necessary, but not sufficient, condition for CG lightning to occur; values over 500 J/kg of lake induced CAPE much also be present for CG lightning initiation.”
On May 20th, 2013 a EF 5 tornado hit Moore, Oklahoma and surrounding towns, with a path as wide as 1.3 miles wide (2.1 km) and had a wind speed, estimated at its peak, of 210 miles per hour (340 km/h). Killing 24 people, and injuring 377, this was one of the United States worst tornadoes in the past few years, along side the Joplin, Missouri tornado, in 2011. One of Mother Nature’s most dangerous and still very mysterious phenomenons averages about 1,200 reported each year, resulting in 80 deaths and injuring 1500. With very little known about them, especially whether or not they will form is one of the questions that plague meteorologist to this very day. What causes tornadoes, how does the tilt and gravity of the earth affect the winds to produce a tornado, and what will the future hold about our understanding of tornadoes?
Tornadoes form from wind shears. Wind shears form from warm air that is found at ground level; when it’s raised, the updraft meets a down draft of cooler air that is moved in the opposite direction of the warm air. When both are pushed towards the Earth, this creates wind shear. A spinning tube of air, created from wind shear; tilts upward into a vertical position, as the updraft sucks up moisture from the ground and into the sky. As the warm air cools high in the sky; this produces condensation. The condensation then produces thunderclouds, which rise to 30,000+ feet. The spinning formations of air are then trapped and lifted into the thundercloud. This begins as swirling motion and as continued (if the winds remained viable), a supercell will form. Mesocyclones as they are known are a rotating cloud. If these rotating clouds run into humid air it will spi...
Now that the history is covered, I can get down to the nitty gritty of how they are able to appear in the sky. Auroras are caused by the collision of e...
Kate Chopin’s “The Storm”, is a story filled with metaphorical references between a thunderstorm of rain and a thunderstorm of passion. Calixta, Bobinot, and Bibi led, what one would assume to be, a rather normal life. While Bobinot and Bibi are in town shopping they notice a storm approaching, and “Bobinot, who was accustomed to converse on terms of perfect equality with his little son, called the child’s attention to certain sombre clouds that were rolling with sinister intention from the west, accompanied by a sullen, threatening roar.” However, a moment a Mother Nature’s fury unleashed a wealth of passion between Calixta and her former beau Alcee Laballiere.
What is a tornado? A tornado is “a rapidly rotating vortex or funnel of air extending groundward from a cumulonimbus cloud.” (Haddow et al) Tornadoes produce destructive winds that can destroy everything that comes in its path. Meteorologists use the speed of the winds to classify the strength of tornadoes on the Fujita-Pearson scale. The weakest tornadoes, F0, have wind speeds from 65-85 miles per hour, all the way to an F5 tornado, with winds in excess of 200 miles per hour.
On May 4, 2007, the town of Greensburg, Kansas was devastated by an exceptionally strong tornado. With maximum winds estimated to be in excess of 205 miles per hour, and leaving a damage path as wide as 1.7 miles, the storm would go on to be rated a rare EF5, the first recorded in the United States since 1999. When the storm finally subsided, 95 percent of Greensburg had been destroyed, killing eleven people.
Info: Riordan, R. (2005). The Lightning Thief. Narrated by Jesse Bernstein. New York: Listening Library. MP3 Audiobook. ASIN: B000A5CJSQ
However, if the reader looks deeper into the overall moral and theme of the story, “ A Sound of Thunder” could possibly mean that one little change can make a huge impact in the future just like a storm brewing. The two phrases also have some similar yet also some different unique qualities used to really impact the readers perspective of a sound of thunder. “ A Sound of Thunder” as the title of the story ultimately gives a clear point of the lesson Bradbury is trying to tell the reader. This significant title gives the reader many hints toward what may happen throughout the story which also is interpreted as a sound of thunder. All in all, “ A Sound of Thunder” is an incredibly powerful phrase which Bradbury uses as a more profound meaning than just a description of a dinosaur or a shot from a
A tornado occurs in very powerful thunderstorms, and usually it occurs in a super cell. A super cell is a type of storm that already has rotation inside of it, called a mesocycle. A tornado begins to form when a downdraft of air pulls the mesocycle down towards the ground. A funnel begins to form, and when the funnel cloud finally touches down, it officially becomes a tornado. As warm, moist air (the fuel of a tornado) is drawn into the tornado, it matures...
How are tornadoes created? Tornadoes are the result of an extremely large storm called a supercell. A supercell is a storm that has the presence of a mesocyclone. A mesocyclone possesses a deep, persistently rotating updraft. These storms are also referred to as rotating thunderstorms. There are five classifications of thunderstorms: supercell, squall line, multi-cell, and single-cell.
Before any great piano player plays a piece, he warms up. He practices. In a similar sense, so does a thunderstorm. A storm does not start out heavy and powerful; it starts out with a wind. And, the air gets a little cooler; the degrees go down on the thermometer. Powerful thunder vibrates the soul, and the earth is the piano for the persona of the storm.
An ordinary-single cell is the most common, but multicell and supercells are responsible for the severe thunderstorms. The ordinary single-cell thunderstorms are short lived with three stages: the cumulus, the mature, and the dissipating stages. In the last stage, it eliminates the upward supply of high humidity air needed to maintain a thunderstorm. On the other hand, multicell storms are composed of severe individual single-cell storms that can make storms last for several hours. There is dense, cold air of the downdraft that forms the gust front which forms new cells. Then, groups of these thunderstorms tend to join into larger systems referred to as mesoscale convective
Thunderstorm Asthma, a storm so deadly that it's consider something like a terrorist attack. These thunderstorms are rare storms that are caused by a sudden change of weather conditions. The storm picks up different pollens and other allergens and drops them back down with the rain. This causes people with asthma to have asthma attacks and unable to breath. How are these storms started and what can be done to help people with asthma during these storms. What can be done to treat this in the most effective possible way. Where do these storms occur and why they occur in nature.
2. The USA Today Tornado Information site also indicates that there are three key conditions for thunderstorms to form.