Chapter 8: Severe Weather

The goals and objectives of this chapter are to:

Understand how thunderstorm genesis

Describe the types of thunderstorms

Explain the various types of severe weather hazards

Summarize the formation and hazards of tornadoes

Thunderstorm Genesis
THUNDERSTORM BASICS
A thunderstorm is defined as a storm that has lightning and thunder.
Worldwide there are over 40,000 thunderstorms everyday with the
United States alone having 100,000 thunderstorms yearly. The
essential ingredients for a thunderstorm are warm, moist, unstable
air that is forced to rise up either by convection, convergence,
orographic uplift, or weather fronts. The rising parcel of air
condenses into various types of cumulus clouds. The image on the
right from the National Weather Service (NWS) shows how many
days a year the region has thunderstorms.
THUNDERSTORM GENESIS
All thunderstorms go through a three-stage lifecycle. The first stage is called the cumulus stage, where an air parcel is forced to rise,
cool, and condense, called the lower condensation level, to develop into a cumulus cloud. The process of water vapor condensing into
liquid water releases large quantities of latent heat, which makes the air within the cloud warmer, and unstable causing the cloud
continues to grow upward like a hot air balloon. These rising air parcels, called updrafts, prevent precipitation from falling from the
cloud. But once the precipitation becomes too heavy for the updrafts to hold up, the moisture begins to fall creating downdrafts within
the cloud. The downdrafts also begin to pull cold, dry air from outside the cloud toward the ground in a process called entrainment.
Once the precipitation begins to fall from the cloud, the storm has reached the mature stage. During this stage, updrafts and
downdrafts exist side-by-side and the cumulonimbus is called a cell. If the updrafts reach the top of the troposphere, the cumulus cloud
will begin to spread outward creating a defined anvil. At the same time, the downdrafts spread within the cloud and at first make the
cloud become wider, but eventually overtaking the updrafts. Cool downdrafts form when precipitation and the cool air
from entrainment are dragged down to the lower regions of a thunderstorm. It is also during the mature stage when the storm is most
intense producing strong, gusting winds, heavy precipitation, lightning, and possibly small hail.

Once the downdrafts overtake the updrafts, which also prevents the release of latent heat energy, the thunderstorm will begin to
weaken into the third and final stage, called the dissipating stage. During this stage, light precipitation and downdrafts become the
dominate feature within the cloud as it weakens. In all, only twenty percent of the moisture within the cloud fell as precipitation
whereas the other eighty percent evaporates back into the atmosphere.

Editors Note: We all know that we should be prepared for emergencies. Whether that is to have food storage or an emergency plan in
case certain disasters happen. Sometimes we dont think of emergency plans for the disabled. They could be our parents,

grandparents, neighbors, siblings or children and they have special needs for when a disaster strikes. Luckily the Red Cross has though
of everything.
http://www.disastersrus.org/MyDisasters/disability/disability.pdf

Types of Thunderstorms

AIR MASS THUNDERSTORMS

There is a variety of thunderstorms; all with defined characteristics. Air mass thunderstorms, sometimes called ordinary
thunderstorms, go through the defined lifecycle sequence mentioned earlier. As the word implies, air mass thunderstorms occur when
a warm, moist (mT) mass of air from a source region such as the Gulf of Mexico migrates over land like the Great Plains. But rather than
a large-scale storm system forcing the mT air mass upward, localized uplift such as convection, sea-breezes, or orographic uplift forces
the moist air within the air mass upward.

Most thunderstorms can also create other thunderstorms when downdrafts within a thunderstorm slam the ground and spread outward
in an arc-shape. These rippling waves are called outflow boundaries or gust fronts because the cold air from the downdrafts acts
like a mini-cold front. These mini-cold fronts can force warm air upward to generate new thunderstorms with cumulus development. If
you were standing on this beach, you would be in the warm air mass, and the gust front would be coming toward you along with the
cold air from the downdrafts of the thunderstorm many miles away. On average, ordinary thunderstorms last about an hour. But
ultimately, because of these outflow boundaries, you can have many thunderstorms in different stages of development as one creates
the other. These complex systems of thunderstorms can last several hours and are usually called multi-cell thunderstorms.

SEVERE THUNDERSTORMS
The Storm Prediction Center classifies a thunderstorm as severe if it has winds that exceed 58 miles per hour or produces hail with a
diameter of 1.9 centimeters. Of the 100,000 thunderstorms that develop within the United States experiences every year, about ten
percent (10,000 storms) become severe thunderstorms. These can include air mass thunderstorms, squall lines, dryline thunderstorms,
and supercells.
Severe thunderstorms go through the same stages as air mass thunderstorms, but with one significant difference; severe
thunderstorms last much longer in the mature stage. Ordinary thunderstorms do not last much longer than an hour because the
downdrafts begin to cut off the updrafts. But severe thunderstorms have vertical wind shear at different levels that keep the storm in
the mature stage longer. This occurs when fast upper level winds - such as the jet stream - causes the updrafts to be pull away from the
downdrafts. This prevents the downdrafts from cutting off the updrafts. Severe thunderstorms are capable of producing
beautiful mammatus clouds, heavy downpours, flash flooding, large hail, lightning, and straight-line winds.

Squall lines are thunderstorms that develop linearly over hundreds of miles along the leading edge of outflow boundaries and are
called gust fronts. Though these massive storm systems are quite powerful, they do not tend to produce tornadoes. Rather, straight-line
winds and precipitation form because of the powerful, horizontal movement of the gust front.
A squall line can also form along a boundary called a dryline. Recall from the discussion on mid-latitude cyclones that the warm air in
front of the cold front is usually a mT air mass. Well sometimes a dry, warm cT air mass can penetrate between the mT air mass and cP
air mass. Now dry air is actually heavier than moist air, so when it infiltrates a storm system it can cause the mT air mass to rise much
like a cold front without the cold. The hallmark of a dryline is that the moisture within the air dramatically drops following the boundary.
Drylines have the ability to produce severe thunderstorms that are often times more powerful than the cold front behind it. Below is an
image of a dryline that formed on March 23, 2008 at 4:00 PM. The dryline is the brown/tan line with half-circles just in front of the cold
front. This indicates a cT air mass from Mexico was migrating into a cold front that gave Salt Lake City 2 inches of snow. The other
brown circle indicates the region for possible severe thunderstorms. There was also concerns of possible tornadoes along the dryline.
You can read the report by the Storm Predication Center by clicking here.

SUPERCELLS
The most powerful type of thunderstorm is a supercell, which oddly enough is a single-cell thunderstorm on steroids. The United
States alone has anywhere from 2,000 to 3,000 supercells a year. Supercells consist of a single powerful thunderstorm that can last
several hours and grow to a heigth of 65,000 feet and last several hours in the mature stage with winds reaching over 100 mph and
form the majority of all tornadoes.
Just like severe thunderstorms, supercells may have upper-level winds which can pull the updrafts away from the downdrafts. Wind
shear between the upper-level, mid-level, and surface winds can also cause the air beneath a forming supercell to rotate. For example,
if you have upper-level and mid-level winds flowing from the northwest and low-level, warm southern surface winds converging
together, a corkscrew flow of air could develop. This rotating column of air then gets picked up by the thunderstorm's updrafts causing

the entire storm to rotate vertically called a mesocyclone. Now sometimes the rotating portion of the supercell - the mesocyclone can extend below the base of the thunderstorm creating a cloud feature meteorologists called a wall cloud.
Editors Note: Having the Wasatch Mountains so close to our homes makes for some pretty impressive clouds and the storms that

follow.

Severe Weather Hazards

LIGHTNING AND THUNDER

Lighting is how the atmosphere balances out the buildup of opposite electrical charges within a cumulonimbus. The buildup occurs
when charged atmospheric particles become segregated between a cloud and the ground, between clouds, or from a cloud and
surrounding atmosphere. The reason for charged particle separation is unclear to scientists, but some believe that ice crystals
called graupel and supercooled raindrops interact with each other through collision creating positive and negative charges that get
separated within the cloud by updrafts and downdrafts. Others believe that ice pellet formation within the cloud charges the particles.
As an ice pellet forms, the outer shell freezes first and becomes positively charged and the liquid inner core is negatively charged. As
the interior begins to freeze and expand, it breaks apart the positively charged outer layers. These positively charged fragments are
taken into the upper regions of the cloud giving the top of the cloud a positive charge. The heavier liquid water has a negative charge
and are at the base of the cloud.

The image above from the National Weather Service is a map of lightning strikes, called flash rates, annually around the world. Where are lightning
strikes greatest? Where are they the fewest? Can you explain why?

Once charged particles are separated, an electrical attraction exists between the negative and positive charges (think of it like two
magnets attracted to each other). The air between the oppositely charged particles tries to keep them separated. But when the air
cannot keep the two opposite charges separated any longer, the negative charges move towards the positive charge in a zigzag
manner called a stepped leader. As the stepped leader approaches the ground, the positive charges on the surface will rise toward
the steeped leader. It may rise up through trees, buildings, or humans. When the steeped leader and the rising positively charged
particles connect, the negatively charged particles flow from the cloud to the ground. At the same time, an electrical discharge called a
return stroke, flows from the ground toward the cloud along the same path as the stepped leader. The return stroke is the part you see
as lightning. When you see the lightning flicker, it is because this process is repeating itself along the same path.

Eighty percent of all lightning strikes occur cloud-to-cloud, but this

process mentioned above can occur with cloud-to-ground, cloud-tocloud, and cloud-to-air. Lightning is only a few centimeters thick,
but travels at 60,000 mph with a temperature of 54,000 degrees F
(five times hotter than the surface of the sun). Lightning causes the
surrounding air to become superheated, causing the air to expand
violently, creating a shockwave called thunder. To estimate how
far you are from lightning, count the number of seconds between
the flash of lightning and when you hear the thunder reach you,
then divide by five. But if the lightning strike is more than 12 miles
away, thunder won't be heard.
In the summer time, convection and/or orographic uplift can create dry thunderstorms. Dry thunderstorms typically mean storms that
have lightning, but little to no precipitation falling. Often times this occurs when thunderstorms develop in dry atmospheric conditions.
Because the air is so dry, rising eddies of moisture must reach great heights before being able to condense. This creates thunderstorms
with very high cloud bases. Any precipitation that does fall in these dry atmospheric conditions is likely to evaporate before reaching
the ground. Thus these thunderstorms can create lighting, which can cause ignite wildfires and the evaporating precipitation can
produce strong, dry winds that can "push" the fires around.

HAIL
Hail is precipitation in the form of ice pellets that only forms in
cumulonimbus clouds where the lower region of the cloud contains
liquid water and the upper region containing ice freezing. When an
ice pellet falls within the cumulonimbus cloud, it enters the warm,
liquid region and picks up moisture. Then the updrafts through the
ice pellet back up above the freezing point hardening the newly
gathered water. The ice pellet will fall again to collect liquid water
and thrown back up to refreeze. This process will continue until the
weight of the hail stone becomes too heavy for the updrafts to hold
it up. Once the hail becomes too heavy, the hail will precipitate on
the downdraft side of the cumulonimbus.
FLASH FLOODS
The number one weather related cause of death in the United States are flash floods. The National Weather Service states that "flash
floods are short-term events, occurring within 6 hours of the causative event (heavy rain, dam break, levee failure, rapid, snowmelt and
ice jams) and often within 2 hours of the start of high intensity rainfall. A flash flood is characterized by a rapid stream rise with depths
of water that can reach well above the banks of the creek. Flash flood damage and most fatalities tend to occur in areas immediately
adjacent to a stream or arroyo. Additionally, heavy rain falling on steep terrain can weaken soil and cause mud slides, damaging homes,
roads and property."
Urbanized areas are susceptible to flash floods because soil and vegetation are removed and replaced by concrete, roads, and
buildings. When intense precipitation occurs, the water has nowhere to go. Learn more about flash floods from the National Weather
Service.

Editors Note: There are a great number of places that are in Utah that have flash flooding. Their power is immense and they do leave a
lot of destruction and debris behind. Here are some of my own pictures that showcase this.

DOWNBURSTS AND MICROBURSTS

One weather related hazard are downbursts and microbursts. Sometimes the moisture within downdrafts falling from the
thunderstorm evaporates as it enters dryer air below the cloud. As the moisture evaporates, the air cools because of latent heat,
causing the air to become denser. This in turn causes the air to fall faster. As this denser air hits the ground, it spreads out laterally
producing cold winds reaching 100 miles per hour. Microbursts can uproot trees, damage property, and are very dangerous for airplanes
taking off or landing.

Winds, crosswinds, and microbursts are all major concerns for aviation pilots, especially when you are traveling 200 mph and are only
100-500 feet from the ground below. Interestingly enough, because of the world of technology, many of these near-crashes have been
captured on video from all around the world. Below is a video on some of the best landings ever done by pilots fighting crosswinds and
microbursts.

Tornadoes

One of the most violent and destructive forces of weather are tornadoes. The NWS states that "a tornado is a violently rotating (usually
counterclockwise in the northern hemisphere) column of air descending from a thunderstorm and in contact with the ground."
In fact, it is pretty much an extension of a supercell's mesocyclone. They range in size from 300 feet to over two miles wide, last
minutes to hours, travel a few miles to over 250 miles, at speeds of 30-65 mph. About 75 percent of all the tornadoes in the world occur
in the United States; in fact the United States has more tornadoes than the rest of the world combined.
What makes tornadoes so destructive are the wind speeds within them. Atmospheric pressure within a tornado can be 10 percent lower
than the air surrounding the tornado, causing air to flow into the tornado from all directions. As the air flows into and up a tornado, the
moisture begins to cool and condense into a cloud allowing the tornado to be seen. Debris picked up by the tornado will also cause it to
darken. National Geographic has a great interactive website on tornadoes called Forces of Nature. I highly recommend that you check
out this website!

TORNADO FORMATION
The anatomy and development of tornadoes is not fully understood,
but they do form from cold fronts, severe thunderstorms, squall
lines, supercells, and hurricanes. Geography also plays a key role in

determining where tornadoes can and cannot form. The majority of

thunderstorms in the United States form in the Midwest,
called Tornado Alley, where cP air masses from Canada collide
with mT air from the Gulf of Mexico, creating unstable
atmospheric conditions. This wind shear creates a rotating
corkscrew column of air.
As the ground heats up through the day, updrafts pick up the rotating air into a portion of the thunderstorm to developing what is called
a rotating mesocyclone. The updrafts stretch and tighten the now vertical column of air causing it to rotate faster much like an ice
skater tightens to spin faster. As the rotating updrafts rise, a rotating wall cloud begins to form from the base of a mesocyclone.
Sometimes a funnel cloud may begin to descend from the mesocyclone and may even be called a tornado if it reaches the ground.
Since 1990, the United States have averaged 1,200 tornadoes reported every year. But the exact number per year can vary. Because
the contrast between cold polar air and warm subtropical air is greatest in the spring and fall, the majority of tornadoes in the United
States develop during those seasons with April through June being the greatest.
TORNADO DESTRUCTION
The original way tornadoes were classified was based on a scale system developed by Dr. Fujita, which became called the Fujita
Intensity Scale or simply the F-scale. The Storm Prediction Center states that the goal of the Fujita Intensity Scale was to "categorize
each tornado by its intensity and its area and estimate a wind speed associated with the damage caused by the tornado." The scale
ranged from weak F0s to rare and obliterating F5s.
In February 2007, a new classification system began called the Enhanced Fujita Scale. The scale still ranges from 0-5 and is still an
estimate of the tornado's wind speeds, but is an enhancement from the former system because of the focus on "consistent assessment
of damage, which includes enhance descriptions of damage with examples and photos include not only structures, but also vegetation
base damage assignment on more than one structure, if available develop a PC-based expert system develop training materials and
data collection by maintaining current tornado database surveys should include additional data mean and maximum damage path
width basis for damage assignment latitude/longitude of where the path began and ended number of hours spent on the damage
survey names of survey team member(s)."
Any tornado that formed as of February 2007 will have the EF classification, but all previous tornadoes will maintain the old F-scale. The
majority of deaths caused by a tornado are not caused by wind, but by the flying debris. Sometimes a tornado will pass through a
neighborhood and destroy some houses while leaving others with little damage. Scientists have discovered that some large, intense
tornadoes might contain several smaller tornadoes within them called suction vorticies that make up what are called multiple
vortex tornadoes.
TORNADO FORECASTING
A lot of time, money and research has gone into understanding tornadoes in order to provide better warnings to the public. When the
atmospheric conditions are right, the Storm Prediction Center (SPC), which is part of the National Weather Service, analyzes severe
weather and posts their forecasts to alert the pubic. If the conditions are right for a tornado to form, the SPC will send out a tornado
watch alerting the public of the possibility of a tornado in a given area within a specific time. When a tornado has been cited, the
National Weather Service will send a tornado warning out. A tornado warning warns of a "high probability of imminent danger" to a
specific location.
Doppler radar has become vital in not only determining the location and intensity of precipitation but in locating where mesocyclones
and tornadoes may be forming. Doppler radar can do this by monitoring the flow of wind toward or away from the tower, called the

Doppler effect. Click here to view an image of an EF5 tornado approaches the Doppler. Notice a hook echo form in the red and begin
rotating counter-clockwise, like most low pressure systems do in the Northern Hemisphere. Weather satellites have also become
instrumental in weather forecasting and monitoring.
Ever since the movie Twister came out in 1996, there has been a lot of publicity and entertainment with the idea of storm chasing.
Discovery Channel had a popular television series called Storm Chasers that ended in 2012. But there is a lot of science involved with
storm chasers and many are scientists seeking scientific data for better forecasting and warning systems. The largest group of
scientists who monitor tornadoes is called Vortex2, which is funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the National Oceanic
and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). For a series of storm chasing videos,click here.
Editors note/ Movie review: Just today I watched a movie that dramatized tornadoes. Its called Into the Storm, it follows a family of 2
brothers and their dad and a group of storm chasers looking for the big one. After a first tornado hits this small town one of the sons
and the father end up teaming up with the storm chasers because they are going to try and save the second son and the girl that he is
with. Throughout the film they vaguely go over how tornadoes are form and how they track and predict them. The technology behind it
is pretty neat how accurate it can be. Well the movie ends up getting intense with a group of super tornadoes that hit the same town as
the first tornado in the movie. Somewhat unrealistic, but as they point out in the movie weather is getting more intense and much more
erratic. Or we are just better able to document and record these disasters.