Met1010, chapter 10 and 11
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52 terms
Terms | Definitions |
|---|---|
 ordinary cell thunderstorms | A thunderstorm produced by local convection within a conditionally unstable air mass |
| cumulus stage | the initial stage in the development of an ordinary cell thunderstorm in which rising, warm, humid air develops into a cumulus cloud |
| mature stage | the second stage in the three-stage cycle of an ordinary thunderstorm |
| dissipating stage | the final stage in the development of an ordinary cell thunderstorm when downdrafts exist through-out the cumulonimbus cloud |
| multicell thunderstorm | thunderstorms often in a line, each of which may be in a different stage of its life cycle |
| overshooting top | a situation in a mature thunderstorm when rising air, associated with strong convection, penetrates into a stable layer, forcing the upper part if the cloud to rise above its relatively flat top |
| gust front | a boundary that separates a cold downdraft of a thunderstorm from warm, humid surface air. |
| straight-line winds | strong winds created by a thunderstorms downdraft that flows outward, away from the storm in a straight line, more or less parallel to the ground |
| shelf cloud | a dense, arch-shaped, ominous-looking cloud that often forms along the leading edge of a thunderstorm's gust front, especially when stable air rises up and over cooler air at the surface |
| roll cloud | a dense, roll-shaped, elongated cloud that appears to slowly spin about a horizontal axis behind that leading edge of a thunderstorm's gust |
| outflow boundary | a surface boundary separating cooler more-dense air from warmer less-dense air. |
| downburst | A severe localized downdraft that can be experienced beneath a severe thunderstorm |
| microburst | a strong localized downdraft less than 4km wide that occurs beneath thunderstorms |
| heat burst | a sudden increase in surface air temperature often accompanied by extreme drying |
| squall line | a line of thunderstorms that from along a cold from or out ahead of it |
| bow echo | a line of thunderstorms on a radar screen that appears in the shape of a bow |
| derecho | strong, damaging, straight-line winds associated with a cluster of severe thunderstorms that most often form in the evening or at night |
| Mesoscale Convective Complexes | a large organized convective weather system comprised of a number of individual thunderstorms |
| supercell | a severe thunderstorm that consists primarily of a single rotating updraft |
| mesocyclone | a vertical column of cyclonically rotating air within a supercell thunderstorm |
| wall cloud | an area of rotating clouds that extends beneath a supercell thunderstorm and from which a funnel cloud may appear |
| flash floods | a flood that rises and falls quite rapidly with little or no advance warning, usually as the result of intenserainfall over a relatively small area |
| lightning | a visible electrical discharge produced by thunderstorms |
| thunder | the sound due to rapidly expanding gases along the channel of a lightning discharge |
| sonic boom | a loud explosive-like sound caused by a shock wave emanating from an aircraft traveling at or above the speed of sound |
| stepped leader | an initial discharge of electrons that proceeds intermittently toward the ground in a series of steps in a cloud-to-ground lightning stroke |
| return stroke | the luminous lightning stroke that propagates upward from the earth to the base of a cloud |
| dart leader | the discharge of electrons that proceeds intermittenly toward the ground along the same ionized channel taken by the initial lightning stroke |
| dry lightning | lightning that occurs with thunderstorms that produce little, if any, appreciable precipitation that reaches the surface |
| heat lightning | distant lightning that illuminates the sky but is too far away for its thunder to be heard |
| Saint Elmo's Fire | a bright electric discharge that is projected from objects when they are in a strong electric field, suchas during a thunderstorm |
| tornado | an intense, rotating column of air that often protrudes from a cumuliform cloud in the shape of a funnel or a rope whose circulation is present on the ground |
| funnel cloud | a tornado whose circulation has not reached the ground |
| tornado alley | a region in the great plains of the US extending from Texas and OK northward into Kansas and Nebraska where tornadoes are most frequent |
| suction vortices | small, rapidly rotating whirls perhaps 10m in diameter that are found within large tornadoes |
| tornado watch | a forecast issued to alert the public that tornadoes may develop within a specified area |
| tornado warning | a warning issued when a tornado has actually been observed either visually or on a radar screen |
| Fujita scale | a scale developed by T Theodore Fujita for classifying tornadoes according to the damage they cause and their rotational wind speed |
| Enhanced Fujita Scale | a modification of the original fujita scale that describes tornado intensity by observing damage caused by the tornado |
| tornado outbreak | a series of tornadoes that forms within a particular region- a region that may include several states |
| supercell tornadoes | tornadoes that occur within supercell thunderstorms that contain well-developed, mid-level mesocyclones |
| hook echo | the shape of an echo on a doppler radar screen that indicates the possible presence of a tornado |
| nonsupercell tornadoes | a tornado that occurs with a cloud tha tis often in its growing stage, and one that does not contain a mid-level mesocyclone, or wall cloud |
| gustnadoes | a relatively weak tornado associated with a thunderstorms outflow |
| landspout | relatively weak nonsupercell tornado that originateswith a cumiliform cloud in its growth stage and with a cloud that does not contain a mid-level mesocyclone |
| NEXRAD | an acronym for next generation weather radar |
| waterspout | a column of rotating wind over water that has characteristics of a dust devil and tornados |
| When is a rotating supercell most likely to develop? | -winds aloft are strong and change direction from southerly at the surface to more westerly aloft -a low level jet exists just above the earth's surface |
| How does the heat energy in thunderstorms maintain the earth's heat balance? | -thunderstorms distribute heat poleward |
| Over the central plains thunderstorms form most frequently at night due to.... | thunderstorm tops being cooled by radiating infrared energy to space |
| What happens when a warmer hailstone comes in contact with a colder ice cystal? | -there is a net transfer of positive ions (charged molecules) from the warmer object to the colder object. |
| Cloud to ground lightning | begins within the cloud when the localized electric potential gradient exceeds 3 million volts per meter along a path perhaps 50 meters long. |
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