What is nessessary for a thunderstorm to occur?

Question

Include air pressure, temperature, wind speed and moisture

Answer 1

There are three requirements for the formation of thunderstorms.

1. Instability. Once the air has started to rise it keeps rising bacause the rising air is always less dense than the surrounding air. When this happens, the air is said to be unstable. This will continue up to the tropopause, the boundary between the troposphere and the stratosphere. The stratosphere is very stable and puts a lid on the rising air. At this level, the rising air spreads out and you see it as the anvil of the cumulonimbus cloud.

2. Abundant moisture. It is the water vapour in the air that provides the fuel for the thunderstorm. When water vapour condenses into water droplets, latent heat is released. More latent heat is released when the water droplets freeze into ice crystals. The latent heat keeps the air in the cloud warmer and less dense than the surrounding air maintaining the instability.

3. A trigger. Something has to get the air rising in the first place otherwise the instability and moisture have no effect. Triggers include air forced to rise over fronts; air forced to rise over mountains; differential surface heating; differential heating at different levels due to mountains. Once the air starts to rise, the instability keeps it rising and the moisture in the air forms the cloud.

Answer 2

Thunder is, even today, not completely understood by modern science. The word usually describes a sonic shock wave caused by the rapid heating and expansion of the air surrounding and within a bolt of lightning. The bolt changes the air into plasma and it instantly explodes, causing the sound known as a thunder clap.
The cause of thunder has been the subject of centuries of speculation and scientific inquiry. The first recorded theory is attributed to Aristotle in the third century BC, and an early speculation was that it was caused by the collision of clouds. Subsequently, numerous other theories have been proposed. By the mid-19th century, the accepted theory was that lightning produced a vacuum along its path, and that thunder was caused by the subsequent motion of air rushing to fill the vacuum. Later in the 19th century it was believed that thunder was caused by an explosion of steam when water along the lightning channel was heated. Another theory was that gaseous materials were created by lightning and then exploded. In the 20th century a consensus evolved that thunder must begin with a shock wave in the air due to the sudden thermal expansion of the plasma in the lightning channel.

Experimental support for this theory came from spectroscopic temperature measuring up to 36000 K. Arc photography then proved the plasma did not expand thermally in all directions, but preferentially at right angles to the electric current. According to Graneau, the mechanism for this is not yet completely understood in terms of magnetohydrodynamics.

Answer 3

In order for a convective thunderstorm to form there must first be unequal heating of earth's surface and instability in the atmosphere so that any lifting of the air by the convergence of surface winds will be encouraged. The lifted air will be cooled and produce condensation of the air's moisture which releases additional heat into the air enhancing vertical motion even more. For frontal thunderstorms the air is lifted by the frontal surface initiating the instability above the front.

Answer 4

First, you need sufficient moisture and ground heating (usually from the sun) for a thermal to rise to the vaporization level (cloudbase) and a cloud to form.

then-

A lapse rate (change in temperature vs altitude) in the atmosphere such that the latent heat of vaporization of the cloud formation will create sufficient temperature such that the subsequent rise of the vaporized air mass will stay warmer than the surrounding air even as it cools adiabatically. This will cause the cloud to keep rising, and then sucking in more air from below and therefore building the cloud.

Answer 5

Cold And Warm Front And A Cumulonimbus Cloud

Answer 6

Air pressure...temperature, wind speed aaaaand moisture... i believe

Answer 7

thunder and rain