Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
Thunderstorms act as a giant battery in the atmosphere, charging up the electrosphere to about 400,000 volts with respect to the surface. [3] This sets up an electric field throughout the atmosphere, which decreases with increase in altitude. Atmospheric ions created by cosmic rays and natural radioactivity move in the electric field, so a very ...
A thunderstorm, also known as an electrical storm or a lightning storm, is a storm characterized by the presence of lightning [1] and its acoustic effect on the Earth's atmosphere, known as thunder. [2] Relatively weak thunderstorms are sometimes called thundershowers. [3] Thunderstorms occur in a type of cloud known as a cumulonimbus. [4]
Since upper lows produce a lifting motion in the atmosphere like surface lows do, they contribute to cloud cover, snow, rain and thunderstorms when they overlap with sufficient moisture.
An air-mass thunderstorm, also called an "ordinary", [1] "single cell", "isolated" or "garden variety" thunderstorm, [2] is a thunderstorm that is generally weak and usually not severe. These storms form in environments where at least some amount of Convective Available Potential Energy (CAPE) is present, but with very low levels of wind shear ...
Low-pressure areas can also form due to organized thunderstorm activity over warm water. When this occurs over the tropics in concert with the Intertropical Convergence Zone, it is known as a monsoon trough. Monsoon troughs reach their northerly extent in August and their southerly extent in February.
More than 80 bolts of lightning flashed above the Treasure Valley during Monday’s rare storm, according to the National Weather Service.
The upward motions within the storm and winds at higher levels in the atmosphere tend to cause the small ice crystals (and positive charge) in the upper part of the thunderstorm cloud to spread out horizontally some distance from the thunderstorm cloud base. This part of the thunderstorm cloud is called the anvil.
The average thunderstorm has a 24 km (15 mi) diameter and a height of approximately 12.2 km (40,000 ft). Depending on the conditions present in the atmosphere, these three stages take an average of 30 minutes to go through.