Cumulonimbus
A vertically developed cumulus cloud, often capped by an anvil-shaped cirriform cloud. Also called a thunderstorm cloud, it is frequently accompanied by heavy showers, lightning, thunder, and sometimes hail, tornadoes or strong, gusty winds.
Cumulonimbus Mammatus
A portion of a cumulonimbus cloud that appears as a pouch or udder on the under surface of the cloud. Although they do not cause severe weather, they often accompany storms. They may slowly vary in size, since they are an area of negative buoyancy convection, and is associated with severe turbulence in the lower sections of the cloud.
Cumulus
One of the three basic cloud forms (the others are cirrus and stratus). It is also one of the two low cloud types. A cloud that develops in a vertical direction from the base (bottom) up. They have flat bases and dome- or cauliflower-shaped upper surfaces. The base of the cloud is often no more than 3,000 feet above the ground, but the top often varies in height. Small, separate cumulus are associated with fair weather (cumulus humilis). With additional heating from the earth’s surface, they can grow vertically throughout the day. The top of such a cloud can easily reach 20,000 or more into the troposphere. Under certain atmospheric conditions, these clouds can develop into larger clouds, known as towering cumulus (cumulus congestus), and may produce a rain shower. Further development may create a cumulonimbus.
Anvil
The upper portion of a cumulonimbus cloud that becomes flat and spread-out, sometimes for hundreds of miles downstream from the parent cloud. It may look smooth or fibrous, but in shape, it resembles a blacksmith’s anvil. It indicates the mature or decaying stage of a thunderstorm.
Cirriform
Clouds composed of small particles, mostly ice crystals. Because the particles are fairly widely dispersed, this usually results in relative transparency and whiteness, often producing a halo phenomena not observed in other clouds forms. These clouds generally have bases above 20,000 feet in the mid-latitudes, and are classified as high clouds. They include all varieties of cirrus, cirrocumulus, and cirrostratus clouds.
Thunderstorm
Produced by a cumulonimbus cloud, it is a microscale event of relatively short duration characterized by thunder, lightning, gusty surface winds, turbulence, hail, icing, precipitation, moderate to extreme up and downdrafts, and under the most severe conditions, tornadoes.
Shower
Precipitation from a convective cloud that is characterized by its sudden beginning and ending, changes in intensity, and rapid changes in the appearance of the sky. It occurs in the form of rain (SHRA), snow (SHSN), or ice (SHPE).
Lightning
A sudden and visible discharge of electricity produced in response to the build up of electrical potential between cloud and ground, between clouds, within a single cloud, or between a cloud and surrounding air.
Thunder
The sound emitted by rapidly expanding gases along the channel of a lightning discharge. Over three-quarters of lightning’s electrical discharge is used in heating the gases in the atmosphere in and immediately around the visible channel. Temperatures can rise to over 10,000 °C in microseconds, resulting in a violent pressure wave, composed of compression and rarefaction. The rumble of thunder is created as one’s ear catches other parts of the discharge, the part of the lightning flash nearest registering first, then the parts further away.
Hail
Precipitation that originates in convective clouds, such as cumulonimbus, in the form of balls or irregular pieces of ice, which comes in different shapes and sizes. Hail is considered to have a diameter of 5 millimeter or more; smaller bits of ice are classified as ice pellets, snow pellets, or graupel. Individual lumps are called hailstones.
Tornado
A violently rotating column of air in contact with and extending between a convective cloud and the surface of the earth. It is the most destructive of all storm-scale atmospheric phenomena. They can occur anywhere in the world given the right conditions, but are most frequent in the United States in an area bounded by the Rockies on the west and the Appalachians in the east.
Wind
Air that flows in relation to the earth’s surface, generally horizontally. There are four areas of wind that are measured: direction, speed, character (gusts and squalls), and shifts. Surface winds are measured by wind vanes and anemometers, while upper level winds are detected through pilot balloons or aircraft reports.