rm formation and structure
Vertical atmospheric motion
Most brief but violent disturbances in Earth’s wind systems involve large areas of ascending and descending air. Thunderstorms are no exception to this pattern. In technical terms, a thunderstorm is said to develop when the atmosphere becomes “unstable to vertical motion.” Such an instability can arise whenever relatively warm, light air is overlain by cooler, heavier air. Under such conditions the cooler air tends to sink, displacing the warmer air upward. If a sufficiently large volume of air rises, an updraft (a strong current of rising air) will be produced. If the updraft is moist, the water will condense and form clouds; condensation in turn will release latent heat energy, further fueling upward air motion and increasing the instability.
Once upward air motions are initiated in an unstable atmosphere, rising parcels of warm air accelerate as they rise through their cooler surroundings because they have a lower density and are more buoyant. This motion can set up a pattern of convection wherein heat and moisture are transported upward and cooler and drier air is transported downward. Areas of the atmosphere where vertical motion is relatively strong are called cells, and when they carry air to the upper troposphere (the lowest layer of the atmosphere), they are called deep cells. Thunderstorms develop when deep cells of moist convection become organized and merge, and then produce precipitation and ultimately lightning and thunder.
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Upward motions can be initiated in a variety of ways in the atmosphere. A common mechanism is by the heating of a land surface and the adjacent layers of air by sunlight. If surface heating is sufficient, the temperatures of the lowest layers of air will rise faster than those of layers aloft, and the air will become unstable. The ability of the ground to heat up quickly is why most thunderstorms form over land rather than oceans . Instability can also occur when layers of cool air are warmed from below after they move over a warm ocean surface or over layers of warm air. Mountains, too, can trigger upward atmospheric motion by acting as topographic barriers that force winds to rise. Mountains also act as high-level sources of heat and instability when their surfaces are heated by the Sun.
The huge clouds associated with thunderstorms typically start as isolated cumulus clouds (clouds formed by convection, as described above) that develop vertically into domes and towers. If there is enough instability and moisture and the background winds are favourable, the heat released by condensation will further enhance the buoyancy of the rising air mass. The cumulus clouds will grow and merge with other cells to form a cumulus congestus cloud extending even higher into the atmosphere (6,000 metres [20,000 feet] or more above the surface). Ultimately, a cumulonimbus cloud will form, with its characteristic anvil-shaped top, billowing sides, and dark base. Cumulonimbus clouds typically produce large amounts of precipitation.
Types of thunderstorms
At one time, thunderstorms were classified according to where they occurred—for example, as local, frontal, or orographic (mountain-initiated) thunderstorms. Today it is more common to classify storms according to the characteristics of the storms themselves, and such characteristics depend largely on the meteorological environment in which the storms develop. The United States National Weather Service has defined a severe thunderstorm as any storm that produces a tornado, winds greater than 26 metres per second (94 km [58 miles] per hour), or hail with a diameter greater than 1.9 cm (0.75 inch).
Isolated thunderstorms tend to occur where there are light winds that do not change dramatically with height and where there is abundant moisture at low and middle levels of the atmosphere—that is, from near the surface of the ground up to around 10,000 metres (33,000 feet) in altitude. These storms are sometimes called air-mass or local thunderstorms. The