“Thunderstorms”

by Caleb, KE0FOE

As we continue with our series covering JetStream, The National Weather Service’s new Online School for Weather, the topic this time is: Thunderstorms.

Approximately 40,000 thunderstorms happen each day around the world. That adds up to over 14 Million thunderstorms per year.

Thunderstorms require 3 ingredients in order to form: Moisture, Unstable Air, and Lift.

Here in the Midwest, our main source of moisture is the Gulf of Mexico. Unstable air happens when this warm, moist Gulf air is overridden by very cold air aloft. Because there are no tall mountains in the Midwest, upslope thunderstorms, like they have in the Rocky Mountains, do not occur. Instead, our main sources of lift that trigger our thunderstorms include fronts, drylines, and outflow boundaries.

Thunderstorms are dangerous especially during outdoor activities. To know if thunderstorms are expected over the next few days, it’s important to look at the Storm Prediction Center’s “Convective Outlook”. You can quickly view Convective Outlooks for the next 3 days on our homepage at www.N0NWS.com. Just scroll to the bottom and look for the maps. You can click these maps to enlarge them and for more details.

There are a lot of amazing facts and projects about earth’s atmosphere that you and your family can discover on the National Weather Service’s new Online School for Weather called JetStream. Visit their website: weather.gov/jetstream