Why do thunderstorms mainly happen at night time?

Question

I love when it rains, and I noticed that it rains more at night when I am sleeping.....why?

I live in Omaha, NE!! And thunderstorms happen here at night, not during the day....so stop saying they happen more during the day...it's a NE thing!!

Answer 1

no it doesnt it happens more in the afternoon

Answer 2

They actually happen most frequently between 3-6 P.M., although many linger through the evening and sometimes into the overnight hours. This is because the afternoon has the hottest temperatures which helps thunderstorms form. Other things that help thunderstorms initiate and grow can be a cold front, a low level jet, low level convergence, and anything else that forces lift in an area. Icon's answer was very inaccurate.

Answer 3

Well actually most thunderstorms happen during the day cuz they need heating from the sun to help them develop. Most tend to die off after sunset as the atmosphere stabilizes, but a few may maintain intensity into the night. Do you live somewhere in the southeast U.S. or something? If you do then that would explain why it storms so frequently.

Answer 4

I have to get kind of "technical" to answer this. Sorry about that, but here are the two biggest reasons: Convective Inhibition (AKA the "cap") and Lower Level Jet.

During the night, cool air molecules in the lower levels of the atmosphere subside to near the surface, leaving an inversion of warmer air at around 5000 feet. Then the sun comes up and the ground heats the air back up near the surface. By late afternoon, the lowest layer of air may be warm enough to penetrate the cap. With a hole in the cap, the warm and possibly moist (especially in summertime) air rushes upwards, and the water vapor condenses, creating clouds and releasing latent heat, adding to instability. There you have your t-storm, and it may well persist until long after sunset, until the now-cooling-again low level air no longer has impetus to rush upwards. The instability is gone.

The Low Level Jet "LLJ" is a phenomenon in many places around the world, including the central USA.

When a low pressure cyclone approaches the C USA from the west, low level winds are southerly. These winds are slowed during the day by friction from trees, buildings, and undulations of the ground. After sunset, there is a "de-coupling" between the lowest layers very near the ground and the next level, anywhere from merely hundreds of feet to several thousand feet. The de-coupling removes the friction, and the winds can race northward at speeds up to about 70mph, carrying that moisture-rich Gulf of Mexico air with them. This is the LLJ, and if t-storms are ongoing, they may sustain their intensity from the "fuel" provided by the LLJ, possibly right through the night into the next morning. The LLJ sometimes even causes t-storms to intensify very late at night. Near dawn, though, the LLJ will quiet down, as will the storms.

There are, of course, other factors that cause storms, and indeed cold mid and upper level air is part of the equation, but the cap and the LLJ are the primary reasons that so many storms occur in the evenings and late at night.

Answer 5

Thunderstorms happen when two air masses (hot air and cold air) collide. As it gets later in the day the sun in not at an angle where the it is heating up the air as much thus creating cooler air. When the cooler air hits the warmer air the chance of a thunderstorm occurs. Thunderstorms are more common in the summer because of this fluxuation in air masses, but they can occur at any time summer or winter (thunder snow) or day or night mattering on the fronts that are moving in and how drastic the change in temperature is in a short period of time.

Answer 6

Strange -- here in the Detroit area, most of our thunderstorms (when we get them -- it's been pretty dry here) happen during the day. Maybe it's just some quirk about where you live that causes more night storms...

Answer 7

Maybe it just depends on where you are on the globe, because it's not like that where I live. They happen a lot and at all different times here on the Gulf Coast.

Answer 8

Not necessarily.It can occur at any time.But, late evening is the most appropriate time.