With the summer apon us, we see the start and the beauty of summertime thunderstorms.
But what creates thunderstorms? What’s causes them? How do they form?
What usually tiggers the formation of the “thunderstorm” cloud, or the “anvil” cloud (due to it’s shape that looks like an anvil), happens when warm and humid air rises and interacts with an unstable and cool upper air mass. This usually happens thousands of feet above sea-level.
These cloud formations occur about 40,000 to 60,000 feet (eight to 12 miles up in the sky). The rain we see from the thunderstorms come from the upper tiers of the “anvil” cloud.
Inside this cloud however, we see ice crystals (those similar to snow), Grappel (half ice/half water particles), snow and hail form. From the outside, there is a updraft, where wind gets soaked up and goes up into the cloud and it could be as fast as 5o knots (57.5 miles per hour). This updraft acts as a additional fuel for the cloud.
Thunderstorms are commonly seen in the summertime when the daytime heating is at its peak and when the heat interacts with the troposphere (about 12 kilometers or 7.45 miles) while it becomes uncommonly cool causing water vapor to form. Which leads to the formation of the cloud.
Lighting is required with thunderstorms obviously. This occurs when liquid and ice particles collide above freezing level causing a huge electrical field in this area. When this electrical field becomes big enough, the “giant spark” occurs when the particles and the ground meets and it releases the static electricity-like charge.
The lighting is an indicator of active updrafts. The longer this occurs, you know the thunderstorm will continue. Surprising, a lighting bolt is 50,000 degrees; hotter than the surface of the sun. Some flashes causes fires, but it doesn’t always. This is because the flash is so brief, it doesn’t usually spark or even show evidence of a lighting strike had just happen.
source:
http://wiki.answers.com/Q/How_far_up_is_the_top_of_the_troposphere
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