Most people can hold a conversation about the weather just by looking at their mobile device or Facebook! Let's face it, you've all encountered a weather event that might've ruined your plans for the weekend and you've talked about how you can avoid that in the future. Weather is everywhere we go, and we discuss it after it ruins your school's graduation or that family cookout you had planned. For this post, we are going to talk about what a thunderstorm is and how they form.
Thunderstorms form when large masses of air become so unstable that it convects powerfully. We know the atmosphere as unstable by observing the air to be humid and warm. While this is taking place, Upper air levels are typically cool.
As water vapor, that is present, condenses, it releases heat. This makes the already warm air warmer. Forcing the heat to rise higher.
Thunderstorms typically form in the daytime. This is due to the fact that the heat causes the Troposphere (the first atmospheric layer; where almost all weather takes place) to become unstable
If the surface area is great in humidity with the higher level air being noticeably cool, the large air masses continue to rise and form. Therefore, creating the typical supercell thunderstorm we see in Arkansas. Some see these clouds being from 40,000 to 60,000 feet tall. The very tip-top of these clouds consist of ice, snow, and commonly hail.
So what is the main element in thunderstorms? Simple, water vapor. As the storm tracks on it use this water vapor to create rain. As typical thunderstorms track east, (in our case) the rainfall causes the atmosphere to stabilize.
In thunderstorms, we know something as updraft and downdraft. Updraft being the upward wind force and the downward wind force. A Storm with a strong updraft could create hail and heavy rainfall. While a storm with a strong downdraft will not. In Arkansas, we typically see a mixture of both. A strong updraft along with a strong downdraft can create straight-line winds, hail, tornadoes, and torrential rainfall. However, lightning must be present for a system to be considered a thunderstorm.
