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Thunderstorm Genesis
THUNDERSTORM BASICS
A thunderstorm is defined as a storm that has lightning and thunder.
Worldwide there are over 40,000 thunderstorms everyday with the
United States alone having 100,000 thunderstorms yearly. The
essential ingredients for a thunderstorm are warm, moist, unstable
air that is forced to rise up either by convection, convergence,
orographic uplift, or weather fronts. The rising parcel of air
condenses into various types of cumulus clouds. The image on the
right from the National Weather Service (NWS) shows how many
days a year the region has thunderstorms.
THUNDERSTORM GENESIS
All thunderstorms go through a three-stage lifecycle. The first stage is called the cumulus stage, where an air parcel is forced to rise,
cool, and condense, called the lower condensation level, to develop into a cumulus cloud. The process of water vapor condensing into
liquid water releases large quantities of latent heat, which makes the air within the cloud warmer, and unstable causing the cloud
continues to grow upward like a hot air balloon. These rising air parcels, called updrafts, prevent precipitation from falling from the
cloud. But once the precipitation becomes too heavy for the updrafts to hold up, the moisture begins to fall creating downdrafts within
the cloud. The downdrafts also begin to pull cold, dry air from outside the cloud toward the ground in a process called entrainment.
Once the precipitation begins to fall from the cloud, the storm has reached the mature stage. During this stage, updrafts and
downdrafts exist side-by-side and the cumulonimbus is called a cell. If the updrafts reach the top of the troposphere, the cumulus cloud
will begin to spread outward creating a defined anvil. At the same time, the downdrafts spread within the cloud and at first make the
cloud become wider, but eventually overtaking the updrafts. Cool downdrafts form when precipitation and the cool air
from entrainment are dragged down to the lower regions of a thunderstorm. It is also during the mature stage when the storm is most
intense producing strong, gusting winds, heavy precipitation, lightning, and possibly small hail.
Once the downdrafts overtake the updrafts, which also prevents the release of latent heat energy, the thunderstorm will begin to
weaken into the third and final stage, called the dissipating stage. During this stage, light precipitation and downdrafts become the
dominate feature within the cloud as it weakens. In all, only twenty percent of the moisture within the cloud fell as precipitation
whereas the other eighty percent evaporates back into the atmosphere.
Editors Note: We all know that we should be prepared for emergencies. Whether that is to have food storage or an emergency plan in
case certain disasters happen. Sometimes we dont think of emergency plans for the disabled. They could be our parents,
grandparents, neighbors, siblings or children and they have special needs for when a disaster strikes. Luckily the Red Cross has though
of everything.
http://www.disastersrus.org/MyDisasters/disability/disability.pdf
Types of Thunderstorms
Most thunderstorms can also create other thunderstorms when downdrafts within a thunderstorm slam the ground and spread outward
in an arc-shape. These rippling waves are called outflow boundaries or gust fronts because the cold air from the downdrafts acts
like a mini-cold front. These mini-cold fronts can force warm air upward to generate new thunderstorms with cumulus development. If
you were standing on this beach, you would be in the warm air mass, and the gust front would be coming toward you along with the
cold air from the downdrafts of the thunderstorm many miles away. On average, ordinary thunderstorms last about an hour. But
ultimately, because of these outflow boundaries, you can have many thunderstorms in different stages of development as one creates
the other. These complex systems of thunderstorms can last several hours and are usually called multi-cell thunderstorms.
SEVERE THUNDERSTORMS
The Storm Prediction Center classifies a thunderstorm as severe if it has winds that exceed 58 miles per hour or produces hail with a
diameter of 1.9 centimeters. Of the 100,000 thunderstorms that develop within the United States experiences every year, about ten
percent (10,000 storms) become severe thunderstorms. These can include air mass thunderstorms, squall lines, dryline thunderstorms,
and supercells.
Severe thunderstorms go through the same stages as air mass thunderstorms, but with one significant difference; severe
thunderstorms last much longer in the mature stage. Ordinary thunderstorms do not last much longer than an hour because the
downdrafts begin to cut off the updrafts. But severe thunderstorms have vertical wind shear at different levels that keep the storm in
the mature stage longer. This occurs when fast upper level winds - such as the jet stream - causes the updrafts to be pull away from the
downdrafts. This prevents the downdrafts from cutting off the updrafts. Severe thunderstorms are capable of producing
beautiful mammatus clouds, heavy downpours, flash flooding, large hail, lightning, and straight-line winds.
Squall lines are thunderstorms that develop linearly over hundreds of miles along the leading edge of outflow boundaries and are
called gust fronts. Though these massive storm systems are quite powerful, they do not tend to produce tornadoes. Rather, straight-line
winds and precipitation form because of the powerful, horizontal movement of the gust front.
A squall line can also form along a boundary called a dryline. Recall from the discussion on mid-latitude cyclones that the warm air in
front of the cold front is usually a mT air mass. Well sometimes a dry, warm cT air mass can penetrate between the mT air mass and cP
air mass. Now dry air is actually heavier than moist air, so when it infiltrates a storm system it can cause the mT air mass to rise much
like a cold front without the cold. The hallmark of a dryline is that the moisture within the air dramatically drops following the boundary.
Drylines have the ability to produce severe thunderstorms that are often times more powerful than the cold front behind it. Below is an
image of a dryline that formed on March 23, 2008 at 4:00 PM. The dryline is the brown/tan line with half-circles just in front of the cold
front. This indicates a cT air mass from Mexico was migrating into a cold front that gave Salt Lake City 2 inches of snow. The other
brown circle indicates the region for possible severe thunderstorms. There was also concerns of possible tornadoes along the dryline.
You can read the report by the Storm Predication Center by clicking here.
SUPERCELLS
The most powerful type of thunderstorm is a supercell, which oddly enough is a single-cell thunderstorm on steroids. The United
States alone has anywhere from 2,000 to 3,000 supercells a year. Supercells consist of a single powerful thunderstorm that can last
several hours and grow to a heigth of 65,000 feet and last several hours in the mature stage with winds reaching over 100 mph and
form the majority of all tornadoes.
Just like severe thunderstorms, supercells may have upper-level winds which can pull the updrafts away from the downdrafts. Wind
shear between the upper-level, mid-level, and surface winds can also cause the air beneath a forming supercell to rotate. For example,
if you have upper-level and mid-level winds flowing from the northwest and low-level, warm southern surface winds converging
together, a corkscrew flow of air could develop. This rotating column of air then gets picked up by the thunderstorm's updrafts causing
the entire storm to rotate vertically called a mesocyclone. Now sometimes the rotating portion of the supercell - the mesocyclone can extend below the base of the thunderstorm creating a cloud feature meteorologists called a wall cloud.
Editors Note: Having the Wasatch Mountains so close to our homes makes for some pretty impressive clouds and the storms that
follow.
The image above from the National Weather Service is a map of lightning strikes, called flash rates, annually around the world. Where are lightning
strikes greatest? Where are they the fewest? Can you explain why?
Once charged particles are separated, an electrical attraction exists between the negative and positive charges (think of it like two
magnets attracted to each other). The air between the oppositely charged particles tries to keep them separated. But when the air
cannot keep the two opposite charges separated any longer, the negative charges move towards the positive charge in a zigzag
manner called a stepped leader. As the stepped leader approaches the ground, the positive charges on the surface will rise toward
the steeped leader. It may rise up through trees, buildings, or humans. When the steeped leader and the rising positively charged
particles connect, the negatively charged particles flow from the cloud to the ground. At the same time, an electrical discharge called a
return stroke, flows from the ground toward the cloud along the same path as the stepped leader. The return stroke is the part you see
as lightning. When you see the lightning flicker, it is because this process is repeating itself along the same path.
process mentioned above can occur with cloud-to-ground, cloud-tocloud, and cloud-to-air. Lightning is only a few centimeters thick,
but travels at 60,000 mph with a temperature of 54,000 degrees F
(five times hotter than the surface of the sun). Lightning causes the
surrounding air to become superheated, causing the air to expand
violently, creating a shockwave called thunder. To estimate how
far you are from lightning, count the number of seconds between
the flash of lightning and when you hear the thunder reach you,
then divide by five. But if the lightning strike is more than 12 miles
away, thunder won't be heard.
In the summer time, convection and/or orographic uplift can create dry thunderstorms. Dry thunderstorms typically mean storms that
have lightning, but little to no precipitation falling. Often times this occurs when thunderstorms develop in dry atmospheric conditions.
Because the air is so dry, rising eddies of moisture must reach great heights before being able to condense. This creates thunderstorms
with very high cloud bases. Any precipitation that does fall in these dry atmospheric conditions is likely to evaporate before reaching
the ground. Thus these thunderstorms can create lighting, which can cause ignite wildfires and the evaporating precipitation can
produce strong, dry winds that can "push" the fires around.
HAIL
Hail is precipitation in the form of ice pellets that only forms in
cumulonimbus clouds where the lower region of the cloud contains
liquid water and the upper region containing ice freezing. When an
ice pellet falls within the cumulonimbus cloud, it enters the warm,
liquid region and picks up moisture. Then the updrafts through the
ice pellet back up above the freezing point hardening the newly
gathered water. The ice pellet will fall again to collect liquid water
and thrown back up to refreeze. This process will continue until the
weight of the hail stone becomes too heavy for the updrafts to hold
it up. Once the hail becomes too heavy, the hail will precipitate on
the downdraft side of the cumulonimbus.
FLASH FLOODS
The number one weather related cause of death in the United States are flash floods. The National Weather Service states that "flash
floods are short-term events, occurring within 6 hours of the causative event (heavy rain, dam break, levee failure, rapid, snowmelt and
ice jams) and often within 2 hours of the start of high intensity rainfall. A flash flood is characterized by a rapid stream rise with depths
of water that can reach well above the banks of the creek. Flash flood damage and most fatalities tend to occur in areas immediately
adjacent to a stream or arroyo. Additionally, heavy rain falling on steep terrain can weaken soil and cause mud slides, damaging homes,
roads and property."
Urbanized areas are susceptible to flash floods because soil and vegetation are removed and replaced by concrete, roads, and
buildings. When intense precipitation occurs, the water has nowhere to go. Learn more about flash floods from the National Weather
Service.
Editors Note: There are a great number of places that are in Utah that have flash flooding. Their power is immense and they do leave a
lot of destruction and debris behind. Here are some of my own pictures that showcase this.
Winds, crosswinds, and microbursts are all major concerns for aviation pilots, especially when you are traveling 200 mph and are only
100-500 feet from the ground below. Interestingly enough, because of the world of technology, many of these near-crashes have been
captured on video from all around the world. Below is a video on some of the best landings ever done by pilots fighting crosswinds and
microbursts.
Tornadoes
One of the most violent and destructive forces of weather are tornadoes. The NWS states that "a tornado is a violently rotating (usually
counterclockwise in the northern hemisphere) column of air descending from a thunderstorm and in contact with the ground."
In fact, it is pretty much an extension of a supercell's mesocyclone. They range in size from 300 feet to over two miles wide, last
minutes to hours, travel a few miles to over 250 miles, at speeds of 30-65 mph. About 75 percent of all the tornadoes in the world occur
in the United States; in fact the United States has more tornadoes than the rest of the world combined.
What makes tornadoes so destructive are the wind speeds within them. Atmospheric pressure within a tornado can be 10 percent lower
than the air surrounding the tornado, causing air to flow into the tornado from all directions. As the air flows into and up a tornado, the
moisture begins to cool and condense into a cloud allowing the tornado to be seen. Debris picked up by the tornado will also cause it to
darken. National Geographic has a great interactive website on tornadoes called Forces of Nature. I highly recommend that you check
out this website!
TORNADO FORMATION
The anatomy and development of tornadoes is not fully understood,
but they do form from cold fronts, severe thunderstorms, squall
lines, supercells, and hurricanes. Geography also plays a key role in
Doppler effect. Click here to view an image of an EF5 tornado approaches the Doppler. Notice a hook echo form in the red and begin
rotating counter-clockwise, like most low pressure systems do in the Northern Hemisphere. Weather satellites have also become
instrumental in weather forecasting and monitoring.
Ever since the movie Twister came out in 1996, there has been a lot of publicity and entertainment with the idea of storm chasing.
Discovery Channel had a popular television series called Storm Chasers that ended in 2012. But there is a lot of science involved with
storm chasers and many are scientists seeking scientific data for better forecasting and warning systems. The largest group of
scientists who monitor tornadoes is called Vortex2, which is funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the National Oceanic
and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). For a series of storm chasing videos,click here.
Editors note/ Movie review: Just today I watched a movie that dramatized tornadoes. Its called Into the Storm, it follows a family of 2
brothers and their dad and a group of storm chasers looking for the big one. After a first tornado hits this small town one of the sons
and the father end up teaming up with the storm chasers because they are going to try and save the second son and the girl that he is
with. Throughout the film they vaguely go over how tornadoes are form and how they track and predict them. The technology behind it
is pretty neat how accurate it can be. Well the movie ends up getting intense with a group of super tornadoes that hit the same town as
the first tornado in the movie. Somewhat unrealistic, but as they point out in the movie weather is getting more intense and much more
erratic. Or we are just better able to document and record these disasters.