How does severe weather form

The cloud eventually grows upward into areas where the temperature is below freezing. As a storm rises into freezing air, different types of ice particles can be created from freezing liquid drops.

The ice particles can grow by condensing vapor like frost and by collecting smaller liquid drops that haven't frozen yet a state called "supercooled". When two ice particles collide, they usually bounce off each other, but one particle can rip off a little bit of ice from the other one and grab some electric charge.

Lots of these collisions build up big regions of electric charges to cause a bolt of lightning, which creates the sound waves we hear as thunder. The Thunderstorm Life Cycle Thunderstorms have three stages in their life cycle: The developing stage, the mature stage, and the dissipating stage. The developing stage of a thunderstorm is marked by a cumulus cloud that is being pushed upward by a rising column of air updraft. The cumulus cloud soon looks like a tower called towering cumulus as the updraft continues to develop.

There is little to no rain during this stage but occasional lightning. The thunderstorm enters the mature stage when the updraft continues to feed the storm, but precipitation begins to fall out of the storm, creating a downdraft a column of air pushing downward. When the downdraft and rain-cooled air spreads out along the ground it forms a gust front, or a line of gusty winds.

The mature stage is the most likely time for hail, heavy rain, frequent lightning, strong winds, and tornadoes. Eventually, a large amount of precipitation is produced and the updraft is overcome by the downdraft beginning the dissipating stage.

At the ground, the gust front moves out a long distance from the storm and cuts off the warm moist air that was feeding the thunderstorm. Rainfall decreases in intensity, but lightning remains a danger.

They are rare, unpredictable and deadly. The U. Except for heat-related fatalities, more deaths occur from flooding than any other weather-related hazard. Lightning is one of the oldest observed natural phenomena on earth. At the same time, it also is one of the least understood. Straight-line winds are responsible for most thunderstorm damage.

These winds can cause as much damage as a tornado. Wildest Weather in the Solar System. For information on user permissions, please read our Terms of Service. If you have questions about how to cite anything on our website in your project or classroom presentation, please contact your teacher. They will best know the preferred format. When you reach out to them, you will need the page title, URL, and the date you accessed the resource. If a media asset is downloadable, a download button appears in the corner of the media viewer.

If no button appears, you cannot download or save the media. Text on this page is printable and can be used according to our Terms of Service. Any interactives on this page can only be played while you are visiting our website. You cannot download interactives. Weather is the state of the atmosphere, including temperature, atmospheric pressure, wind, humidity, precipitation, and cloud cover.

It differs from climate, which is all weather conditions for a particular location averaged over about 30 years. Weather is influenced by latitude, altitude, and local and regional geography.

It impacts the way people dress each day and the types of structures built. Explore weather and its impacts with this curated collection of classroom resources. Catastrophic weather events include hurricanes, tornadoes, blizzards, and droughts, among others.

As these massively destructive and costly events become more frequent, scientific evidence points to climate change as a leading cause. While they can often be predicted, the loss of life and property take an emotional and economic toll on the community impacted. Explore these resources to teach your students about catastrophic weather events and how they impact every part of the world. The environmental hazards you face depend on where you live. For example, if you live in northern California you are more likely to be impacted by a wildfire, landslide, or earthquake than if you live in Charleston, South Carolina, but less likely to be hit by a hurricane.

This is because the physical conditions in each place are different. The active San Andreas fault runs through California and causes regular earthquakes, while the warm waters transported by the Gulf Stream can intensify a storm heading for South Carolina.

These environmental hazards shape human activity regionally. Learn more about environmental hazards with this curated resource collection. Climate describes the average weather conditions of a particular place over a 30 year period. All places on earth have their own climates. Different from weather events, which are short-term and temporary phenomenon, climates are usually steady and predictable, and shape how organisms and human civilizations evolve and adapt in any given region.

However, climates are not always permanent, and can change drastically due to human activity. Explore the world's climates and how they affect local regions and the planet with this curated collection of resources. Students use prior knowledge, a photo gallery, and a video to discuss what they already know about extreme weather on Earth and brainstorm a list of weather-related words.

Then they organize the information they learned about weather events and conditions present for each type of weather event, and compare and contrast weather events and conditions. Students examine the causes and effects of extreme weather events and read to contrast weather and climate. Next, they create and revise models of an extreme weather event using knowledge of weather variables. Finally, students link extreme weather events and climate change.