People have always paid great attention to thunderstorms. It was they who were associated with most of the prevailing mythological images, guesses were built around their appearance. Science has figured this out relatively recently - in the 18th century. Many people are still tormented by the question: why is there no thunderstorm in winter? Later in the article we will deal with this.
How does a thunderstorm happen?
This is where ordinary physics works. Thunderstorm is a natural phenomenon in the atmosphere. It differs from a normal rainfall in that during any thunderstorm, strong electric discharges occur, combining cumulus rain clouds between themselves or with the ground. These discharges are also accompanied by loud sounds of thunder. Often the wind intensifies, sometimes reaching a squall-hurricane threshold, there is a hail. Shortly before the start of the air, as a rule, it becomes stuffy and humid, reaches a high temperature.
Types of Thunderstorms
There are two main types of thunderstorms:
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Intra-mass
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frontal.
Intra-mass thunderstorms arise as a result of abundant heating of air and, accordingly, the collision of hot air at the surface of the earth with cold air above. Because of this feature, they are quite strictly tied to time and, as a rule, begin in the afternoon. They can pass over the sea at night, while moving above the surface of the water that gives off heat.
Frontal thunderstorms occur when two air fronts collide - warm and cold. They do not have a certain dependence on the time of day.
The frequency of thunderstorms depends on the average temperatures in the region where they occur. The lower the temperature, the less likely they will happen. At the poles you can meet them only once every few years, and they end very quickly. Indonesia, for example, is famous for its frequent lingering thunderstorms, which can begin more than two hundred times a year. However, they bypass deserts and other areas where it rarely rains.
Why are thunderstorms happening?
The key reason for the origin of the thunderstorm is precisely the uneven heating of the air. The higher the temperature difference near the ground and at altitude, the stronger and more often thunderstorms will occur. The question remains open: why there is no thunderstorm in winter?
The mechanism of how this phenomenon occurs is as follows: according to the law of heat transfer, warm air from the earth tends to go up, while cold air from the top of the cloud, together with the ice contained in it, goes down. As a result of this cycle, in the parts of the cloud that support different temperatures, two different-polar electric charges arise: positively charged particles accumulate at the bottom, and negatively at the top.
Each time they collide between two parts of the cloud, a huge spark jumps through, which, in fact, is lightning. The sound of the explosion with which this spark bursts hot air, and there is a well-known thunder. The speed of light is higher than the speed of sound, so lightning and thunder do not reach us at the same time.
Types of Lightning
Everyone saw the usual lightning-spark more than once and certainly heard about ball lightning. Nevertheless, this does not exhaust all the variety of lightning caused by thunderstorms.
There are four main types:
- Lightning sparks that hit the clouds and do not touch the ground.
- Ribbon connecting the clouds and the earth - these are the most dangerous lightning, which should be most feared.
- Horizontal lightning striking the sky below cloud level. They are considered especially dangerous for residents of the upper floors, because they can go down quite low, but they do not touch the ground.
- Ball lightning.
Why is there no thunderstorm in the cold winter?
The answer to this question is quite simple. Why is there no thunderstorm in winter? Due to low temperatures near the earth’s surface. There is no sharp contrast between the warm air heated below and the cold air from the upper atmosphere, so the electric charge contained in the clouds is always negative. That is why there is no thunderstorm in winter.
Of course, from this it follows that in hot countries, where the temperature in winter remains positive, they continue to occur regardless of the time of year. Accordingly, in the coldest parts of the world, for example, in the Arctic or Antarctica, a thunderstorm is the greatest rarity comparable to rain in the desert.
Spring thunderstorms usually begin in late March or April, when the snow is almost completely melting. Its appearance means that the earth has warmed up enough to give off heat and to be ready for crops. Therefore, a lot of folk signs are associated with spring thunderstorms.
An early spring thunderstorm can be harmful to the earth: as a rule, it occurs during abnormally warm days, when the weather has not yet settled, and brings with it unnecessary humidity. After this, the ground is often frozen with ice, it freezes and provides a poor harvest.
