Meteorology/Severe Storms

Topic of Meteorology: Severe Storms

Life Cycles of Thunderstorms
For the average thunderstorm there are three stages.

The cumulus
The Cumulus stage is dominated by rising currents of air (updrafts) and the formation of a towering cumulonimbus cloud. Falling precipitation within the cloud causes drag on the air and initiates a downdraft that is further aided by the influx of cool, dry air surrounding the cloud, a process termed entrainment.This stage than progresses to the

Mature Stage
The mature stage is marked by the downdraft leaving the base of the cloud and the release of precipitation. With gusty winds, lightning, heavy precipitation, and sometimes hail, the mature stage is the most active period of a thunderstorm.

Dissipating Stage
Marking the end of the storm, the dissipating stage is dominated by downdrafts and entrainment. Without a supply of moisture from updrafts, the cloud soon evaporates. It should be noted that within a single air-mass thunderstorm there may be several individual cells—that is, zones of adjacent updrafts and downdrafts.

Thunderstorm Hazards
Causes of Lightning: Some cloud physicists believe that charge separation occurs during the formation of ice pellets. Experimentation shows that as droplets begin to freeze, positively charged ions are concentrated in the colder regions of the droplets, whereas negatively charged ions are concentrated in the warmer regions. Thus, as the droplets freeze from the outside in, they develop a positively charged ice shell and a negatively charged interior. As the interior begins to freeze, it expands and shatters the outside shell. The small positively charged ice fragments are carried upward by turbulence, and the relatively heavy droplets eventually carry their negative charge toward the cloud base. As a result, the upper part of the cloud is left with a positive charge, and the lower portion of the cloud maintains an overall negative charge with small positively charged pockets. As the cloud moves, the negatively charged cloud base alters the charge at the surface directly below by repelling negatively charged particles. Thus, the surface beneath the cloud acquires a net positive charge. These charge differences build to millions and even hundreds of millions of bolts before a lightning stroke acts to discharge the negative region of the cloud by striking the positive area of the ground below, or, more frequently, the positively charged portion of that cloud, or a nearby cloud.

Effects of Lightning If

Resources
"The Atmoshpere" by Frederick K. Lutgens and Edward J. Tarbuck

"Meteorology Today" by Ahrens