THUNDERSTORM

THUNDERSTORM

Subject: Geography

Context: A thunderstorm accompanied by heavy rainfall hit Kolkata and the other districts of south Bengal on Tuesday afternoon. According to officials, three people were killed in rain-related incidents.

Concept :

• Thunderstorms and tornadoes are severe local storms. They are of short duration, occurring over a small area but are violent.
• Thunderstorm is a storm with thunder and lightning and typically also heavy rain or hail.
• Thunderstorms mostly occur on ground where the temperature is high. Thunderstorms are less frequent on water bodies due to low temperature.
• Worldwide, there are an estimated 16 million thunderstorms each year, and at any given moment, there are roughly 2,000 thunderstorms in progress.

Motion of a thunderstorm

• Path of a thunderstorm is erratic. Motion is primarily due to interactions of its updrafts and downdrafts.
• The speed of isolated storms is typically about 20 km (12 miles) per hour, but some storms move much faster.
• In extreme circumstances, a supercell storm may move 65 to 80 km (about 40 to 50 miles) per hour.

Downbursts

• Downdrafts are referred to as macrobursts or microbursts.
• Macroburst is more than 4 km in diameter and can produce winds as high as 60 metres per second, or 215 km per hour.
• A microburst is smaller in dimension but produces winds as high as 75 metres per second, or 270 km per hour
• They are seriously hazardous to aircrafts, especially during takeoffs and landings.