Whether you just love the nature and admire its awesome power or get a thrill feeling and challenging some of its most intense and severe natural phenomena, thunderstorms inspire feelings of awe.
What may at first glance seem chaotic and random processes and phenomena, are ruled by well-understood natural laws. While some phenomena in thunderstorms still evade full understanding, thunderstorms and severe weather are a well-developed field of meteorology. Our understanding is based on decades of observation and research by numerous scientists across the world.
We will tap into this vast treasury of knowledge and see how and why thunderstorms form, why some hot summer days see only fair weather clouds while others erupt in severe thunderstorms. We will see how winds shape thunderstorms and define their character, why some thunderstorms produce hail while others produce only rain. And much, much more.
This is the exciting world of your national weather service, your radio and TV meteorologists, the world of weather photographers, the world of storm spotters and storm chasers. Let’s go right in!
Before we start
- Don’t worry about the terminology. There are lots of names to remember, it takes time. It is important that you understand what is going on in nature.
- If you are new to this, you probably already know more than you realize. You have likely experienced many of the phenomena we are going to talk about.
Start here: BASIC WEATHER