Talk:Thunderstorm

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Thunderclouds also have a wide distribution of occurrences. These forms of clouds are able to form under the circumstance where warm, moist air collides with cool air fronts. Thunderclouds undergoes two stages of development: Cumulus and Mature. During the stage of Cumulus, the heat generated from the Sun's radiation warms up the Earth's crust and the air close towards it. The warming of the air cause an updraft to form, allowing the warmed air to rise as warm air is less dense than normal oxygen. If the updraft contains water molecules, the rising of the updraft would cause the water molecules to condense forming a Cumulus cloud(there is less heat presented in higher attitudes). The continuation of condensation of the water molecules would allow the Cumulus cloud to reach greater volume. This ends the Cumulus stage. The next stage of mature starts off by the expansion of the Cumulus cloud. As the Cumulus cloud continues to reach larger size, the water molecules composed within the cloud becomes too heavy for the Cumulus to hold. The water molecules then fall downwards as water is denser than air in the atmosphere. While this phenomenon undergoes, the cool air(or downdraft) enter the now-less dense Cumulus cloud. This process is known as entrainment. Downdrafts, being heavier than updrafts causes the Cumulus cloud to descend. While descending, the downdraft forces down water molecules that form the precipitation of the thunderstorm. Once this process is complete, the Cumulus cloud is then transformed into a Cumulonimbus cloud. The Cumulonimbus cloud is the basic foundation of a thundercloud.

This information was removed from the severe weather page, but may be of use to your article. Respectfully Bullock ✉ 18:56, 28 May 2010 (UTC)

Pictures

Really nice article, April. If I might suggest a picture or two, for someone who knows how to put them in (I'm at the end of a workday, else I might do it myself). All are public domain:

http://www.crh.noaa.gov/iwx/wxpics/clouds_sun/BerryLightning2.jpg

http://www.crh.noaa.gov/iwx/wxpics/clouds_sun/Berryshelf.jpg (this is a shelf cloud, 78 mph winds in the storm)

http://www.photolib.noaa.gov/historic/nws/wea00606.htm (Boston, 1967)

http://www.photolib.noaa.gov/nssl/nssl0013.htm

Just a few among many at the noaa site. Hmm, noticed that a couple of them are shown, and others aren't.. No clue why. rgamble

its sorta boring :( zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz* The two pictures above that are still available are illustrations of lightning, which might not be the best thunderstorm pictures. -- Beland 22:53, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

Diagrams

It would be very helpful if there were some diagrams illustrating the airflow in each of the three different types of thunderstorm. -- Beland 22:53, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

Seems to have been done - feel free to re-add {{reqdiagram}} if you think it needs more. SeventyThree^(Talk) 00:27, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

Expansion request: Formation

How do weather fronts and tropical cyclones give rise to thunderstorms, structurally speaking? This is hinted at but not well explained. -- Beland 03:28, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

Thunderstorms are created in both scenarios because warm air is forced to rise into cooler air in the upper-levels, so it condenses into cumulonimbus. -- IRP (talk) 02:31, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

You can have warm moist (even dry air can lead to dry thunderstorms) air at the surface and cooler air in the mid and upper-levels (Sometime there can be a cap/inversion which is a layer of warmer air then the air below and above it which can hold off storms until heating on the surface is at it's peak or it can stop storms from forming) but you also need a trigger (which is always needed) such as a low pressure trough, low pressure system or a cold front. Bidgee (talk) 02:38, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

Sources

There's quite a lot of unverified facts in here, so I've added an unreferenced tag. Annihilatenow 11:06, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

Merge from Squall

Related but distinct. Keep Squall separate. --Kbh3^rdtalk 18:12, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

Agree that these two are related but Squall should remain a discrete page. Right now Squall isn't very extensive, but it has serious potential for a large article. At that point, it will be obvious it doesn't need to be totally merged into Thunderstorm. JLamb 04:00, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

If the squall is integrated into the thunderstorm article, the other types of thunderstorms have to be too. There is already an article on the supercell. So either you explain every type of thunderstorms in one article, which could be huge, OR you leave separate article like now. Pierre cb 11:00, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

GA Nomination

I am placing the GA nomination of this article on hold for 7 days for some rewriting of the introduction to better conform with WP:LEAD. I would recomend splitting off some of the information about thunderstorm activity in specific locations into a new section and possible trim some of the U.S. centric stuff. Wikipedia is a worldwide not just American encyclopedia. Otherwise it looks good. The referencing is a little light-specific facts and assertions should have in-line citations-but not enough to fail the article. Eluchil404 23:55, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

I just rewrote the lead somewhat and took out the US-centric stuff. CrazyC83 02:06, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the quick responce. I am now passing the article through to GA as it looks to meet all the criteria. Eluchil404 23:20, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

GA Review

The Good Article review for this article has ended, and counting the person who first passed it, it was one person for being a GA, and three opposed, therefore, I have delisted this article. Main concern was an overall lack of broadness, though especially in the thunderstorm detection section. Review archived here: Wikipedia:Good articles/Disputes/Archive 7 Homestarmy 18:45, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

Paragraph requires a rewrite

" * Single cell storms form when the atmosphere is not strong enought, but there is little or no wind shear, meaning precipitation falls back down through the updraft that led to it, cooling it and eventually killing it. These storms are short lived, and last for less than an hour after becoming strong enough to produce lightning. Days with suitable weather conditions often see the repeated forming and dissipation of such storms, leading them to be known as "pulse" storms.[4]" Shorvath 05:44, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

Discrepancy

This article says: "Cloud to cloud lightning is rarely seen and is when a bolt of lightning arches from one cloud to another."

The lightning article says: "Cloud-to-cloud Intracloud lightning is the most common type of lightning..."

One is wrong, probably the former.

Watching all the flashing that goes on in a distant storm cloud makes it easy to believe that intra-cloud (within the same cloud) lightning is very common. However, it ain't what we think that's important. This page at NASA states that intra-cloud lightning is the most common. The discrepancies probably arise from the ease with which the opposing suffixes intra- and inter- are confused. --Kbh3^rdtalk 21:53, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

Severe thunderstorm

It says in the article that "Severe thunderstorms can occur from any type of thunderstorm, however multicell and squall lines represent the most common forms." Also it describe how powerful a supercell is, and "In fact, most tornadoes occur from this kind of thunderstorm." So maybe supercell should be included in "severe thunderstorm"? --Natasha2006 18:10, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

nice source on particle acceleration in thunderstorms

I really have no understanding of this, but I found a reliable source on particle acceleration in thunderstorms. http://arxiv.org/abs/0708.2947v1

I hope it will be of some value Teardrop onthefire 12:09, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

I am going to argue against this on principle. An atmospheric discharge is a massive broadband, full spectrum, EM transmission. —Will research for food (talk) 12:34, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

Ball Lightning

The article states that Ball Lightning appears in the shape of a 20-200 cm ball, is this circumference, diameter, radius, or what? It is not very well explained in the article. 71.249.149.167 (talk) 00:47, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

Merge proposal

Back-building thunderstorm should be merged into the Classification section of the article like what has been done in the past like Supercell and Single cell. Bidgee (talk) 06:14, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

Overblown

This article seems to greatly overblow the power of thunderstorms. It seems to imply that EF3+ tornadoes are common in supercells, which they are not. The article needs to be rewritten to express that most thunderstorms do not become severe, and only a miniscule fraction of thunderstorms produce tornadoes, and a fraction even smaller than that produce significant tornadoes (EF2+ per SPC definition). Southern Illinois SKYWARN (talk) 14:29, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

Electrical Storms vs Thunderstorms

It seems odd to me that electrical storms are lumped in with thunder storms, but what I am accustomed to calling an electrical storm (like a thunder storm, but without rain) isn't mentioned in the article. Am I missing something or is that usage merely a local one? CsikosLo (talk) 02:54, 27 July 2008 (UTC)

The two are considered the same thing, those are just different names. A thunderstorm without precipitation is called a "dry thunderstorm". -- IRP (talk) 02:59, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

No thunder

There was a thunderstorm here last night, and there wasn't as much thunder as there were lightening bolts, and there seemed to be two sources of the lightening, one flashing more than the other - is this ok? 90.208.116.48 (talk) 07:16, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

What you may have experienced was Heat lightning where you see lightning but hear no sound. THis happens regularly and is normal. The reason why you dont hear anything is because the storm was probably far away or there was more than one storm present. 71.112.229.17 (talk) 04:25, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, Heat lightning is just plain wrong.

With an associated thunderstorm there is always lightning, however, the tricky part is knowing that light travels much much farther than sound does. This is very important to realize. My best example is when I lived in Norman, Oklahoma, we used to watch the towering thunderheads over Dallas, Texas at night flash like crazy, very spectacular (while in Norman at my apartment).

The point is, thunder from each lightning bolt can only be heard so far, possibly less than 10-15 miles. Now if your t-storm is 10-15miles tall already, I hope you can see that there may be some flashes that you see, but do not hear anything. —Will research for food (talk) 12:44, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

T-storm

I'd like to see a V and RS for a thunderstorm being called a t-storm and that this term is in any way common enough for the lead. Otherwise I'll remove it again, Thanks. Verbal chat 07:19, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

T-storm is a acronym/abbreviation used in the US (IE: Weather Channel and NOAA) where space is limited for forecasts and warnings. I have seen T-storm used in Australia but it's not really a common acronym/abbreviation. However I don't think it should be used within the article. Bidgee (talk) 07:27, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

Is it OK to say "abbreviated as t-storm"? -- IRP (talk) 02:22, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

No it's not since t-storm is not a common abbreviation. Bidgee (talk) 02:26, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

Is it OK to say "sometimes abbreviated as t-storm"? -- IRP (talk) 02:33, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

Not really since the lead sentence is mostly for common words not ones which are not commonly said. Bidgee (talk) 02:41, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

Should it be put somewhere within the article? -- IRP (talk) 02:54, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

new image of a developing cumulonimbus

I would like to add my image of a cumulonimbus to the article in the section "Life cycle." Any objections or suggestions?--JezFabi (talk) 17:39, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

Type: Dirty thunderstorm

Anyway to incorporate the Dirty thunderstorm term here. -IncidentFlux ^{[ TalkBack | Contributions ]} 21:17, 13 December 2008 (UTC)

According to NationalGeographic.com - Chile Volcano Erupts With Ash and Lightning

After 9,000 years of silence, Chile's Chaiten volcano erupted, generating on May 3 what may have been a "dirty thunderstorm." These little-understood storms may be caused when rock fragments, ash, and ice particles collide to produce static charges--just as ice particles collide to create charges in regular thunderstorms.

Green sky

There have been some studies (mostly inconclusive as I recall) regarding whether the sky can turn green during a thunderstorm and what causes it. I'm not sure whether this should be a part of this article, the supercell article, or something else if at all. Hellbus (talk) 23:15, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

America Biases

Couldn't help but notice the 'Where thunderstorms occur' section, half of it is about where thunderstorms occur in just the united states. The whole article also seems to have too much focus on america. I think the american information could be diluted a little at least with info about other areas. 58.106.108.146 (talk) 04:10, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

Improvement

The threat section of the article should be expanded to include the hazards produced by those phenomena. Currently it only lists the phenomena that can occur during thunderstorms, and a brief sentence about damages they can produced. KnowledgeRequire (talk) 22:25, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

Here is a list of threats and hazards we can cover on this topic:

• Downbursts
• Large Hail
• Tornadoes
• Cloud-to-Ground Lightning
• Flash Flooding
• Wildfires
• Tropical Cyclones

KnowledgeRequire (talk) 20:40, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

I've added more to the squall line and hail sections, as well as adding a motion section, which was sorely needed. References are also being added, and are significantly lacking within this article. Thegreatdr (talk) 17:30, 30 August 2009 (UTC)

I'm going to start writing a myth section for this article, since there are a few myths about the mechanisms of thunderstorms and lightning. With that, I guess a safety section can also be added? KnowledgeRequire (talk) 17:41, 30 August 2009 (UTC)

Flooding and tornadoes require completely opposite actions. We removed that from the severe weather article because of this dilemna. Thegreatdr (talk) 17:43, 30 August 2009 (UTC)

Well, that's true. Though the safety section does not necessary have to cover all the hazards that exist in thunderstorms. It could just cover the safety and precautions to take during lightning phenomena. The same goes for the myths section. KnowledgeRequire (talk) 17:48, 30 August 2009 (UTC)

Six sections/subsections still require references. Once the article is adequately referenced, we can send it on to GAN. Thegreatdr (talk) 15:12, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

We also need to eliminate the cleanup templates as well. KnowledgeRequire (talk) 18:02, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

True. Some of that work has already occurred though, but it will continue. Thegreatdr (talk) 18:33, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

We're down to four subsections which still require references. Work to unify the ref format within the article has begun...there are 12 refs which need to be brought into cite web format. I don't think tropical cyclones need to be covered within this article. Tornadoes and downbursts are talked about in a cursory way, which is fine. The severe weather article, as well as the tornado, outflow boundary, and downburst articles can get into more detail, as they should as subarticles. Thegreatdr (talk) 21:26, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

I have been spotting quite amount of false, inaccurate, or unclear information in the contents before improvements were made. We need to fix those as well once we are done with coverage and referencing. KnowledgeRequire (talk) 21:47, 5 September 2009 (UTC)

Of course. I've been fixing errors as I've gone along as well. Some of the lack of clarity may be artifacts of my editing though. Thegreatdr (talk) 21:50, 5 September 2009 (UTC)

The remaining issues are resolving the ref format to be consistent through the article, and some expansion of the energy and mythology sections. The article should now be well-enough referenced factwise to pass GAN. Thegreatdr (talk) 18:16, 9 September 2009 (UTC)

Added a tornado section, and struck your comment out above. Thegreatdr (talk) 22:23, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

This is just an opinon, but the tornado section(I realize that this was obtained from other articles) goes a bit too much into their characteristics and geographic distribution. It should be added with more contents regarding the hazards they can produce. KnowledgeRequire (talk) 22:34, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

I agree. Will make the changes. Thegreatdr (talk) 22:38, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

Hailstorm in the lead sentence is not correct

On the topic of synonyms, t-storm is a more common synonym than hail storm. Besides, hail storm is not correct, given that all thunderstorms DO NOT have hail in them, nor do all t-storms precipitate hail necessary to be called a hail storm. I am going to change it, unless someone disagrees tell me why here. —Will research for food (talk) 12:53, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

I'm fine with that. It was a relic which was apparently missed by myself and the GAN reviewer. Thegreatdr (talk) 14:06, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

signs

There should be a section explaining the signs of a thunderstorm is coming or if there are favourable conditions for thunderstorm development. --86.41.138.186 (talk) 18:10, 22 August 2010 (UTC)

I agree. I also think there should be (and will add, unless someone objects) a section on thunderstorm safety, as "thunderstorm safety" currently redirects to lightning (which doesn't really make much sense, if you think about it; lightning isn't the only hazard associated with thunderstorms). Sleddog116 (talk) 13:27, 24 August 2011 (UTC)

Flash Floods

This term is misdescribed in this article. A flash flood is a very sudden unexpected flood as when a dam wall bursts. When it rains upstream but no rain at your location and this results in a wall of water flowing down a narrow river - that is the typical flash flood. Heavy rain resulting in water on the ground is just called flooding. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Whatdoctor (talk • contribs) 22:28, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

I don't know if I would say that the term is misdescribed, but I agree this section needs a bit of cleanup. The NWS glossary definition of flash flooding does list "intense rainfall" as one example of a "causative event" of flash flooding. I do agree, however, that there should be a distinction between flash flooding and normal flooding. Flash flooding is a "rapid water level rise", where flooding is slower. (I'll admit, too; I'm going purely by the National Weather Service definition. If anyone can find additional sources, please share them. I've got a field guide, but not handy. I'll consult it when possible and update if necessary.) Also, I think the last few sentences of this section (from "Like all forms..." on) should be moved to the main article for flash flood, as they are relevant to flash flooding but really have nothing to do with thunderstorms. I'll move the text and make appropriate corrections. Regards. Sleddog116 (talk) 15:35, 23 August 2011 (UTC)

Australian thunderstorms?

Why is there so many pictures of Australian thunderstorms in this article? You'd think this was an 'Australian Wikipedia' or something like that, haha. Surely less Australia pictures and more from other countries would be better, to show that thunderstorms happen all around the world. In fact, I'm quite surprised there isn't one Florida thunderstorm picture on here. 82.16.15.192 (talk) 21:57, 4 October 2012 (UTC)