Do scientist understand fully the workings of a thunderstorm?

Question

What causes it? What sustains it? What ends it?

Answer 1

Yes and no. Scientists do fully understand the underlying physics and chemistry that results in thunderstorms. Oddly the basic science is often the easiest part to understand.

However, when you try to consider a real thunderstorm the complexity of it's structure, winds, and energy flows becomes so great that it cannot be fully understood, or perhaps it is more proper to say that the full complexity cannot be fully known.

Thunderstorms like many other natural phenomena are chaotic. That is a term with a very specific scientific meaning. Chaotic processes cannot be predicted with less than perfect knowledge of the system. It is primarily in this sense that thunderstorms are not fully understood and therefore predictable.

In my opinion that is a relatively trivial sense of not understanding something and so I would say that we understand thunderstorms very well, if not perfectly.

Answer 2

The presence of ice crystals and super cold water that has not become solid moving in the turbulence of a large cloud causes electrons to "brush" off form one water molecule to another or drift off. After time these create a positive charge at the upper regions of the cloud and a negative charge at the bottom.

Lightning occurs when the negative charge at the bottom becomes so strong that it flashes to it's counter in the upper range - this is the sheet lighting you see inside a cloud. If the charge comes close enough to the earth, which is normally positively charged, you get a lightning strike!

The end of a storm comes when there is enough rain to "drain" the water from the upper levels enough to stop the charge build up.

Answer 3

They know a lot about them, but there is still a lot to learn. Some formation predictions are becoming somewhat more accurate, but it is still not very precise. They would like to get at least a 15 to 20 minute warning as to where severe weather and tornadoes will strike.

Answer 4

No, they do not understand it FULLY. They really do not understand anything fully, but weather in general is probably one of the less fully understood things that scientists partly understand.