A convective storm accompanied by lightning and thunder and a variety of weather conditions, especially heavy rain or hail, high winds, and sudden temperature changes. Thunderstorms originate when intense heating causes a parcel of moist air to rise, leading to instability and the development of cumulonimbus cloud – a towering cloud with a characteristic anvil-shaped top. The exact mechanisms of thunderstorms are not fully understood. They occur most frequently in the tropics but are also common in the mid-latitudes.
Thunderstorm. Cross section through a thunderstorm cell.
A storm of fairly local scale in which strongly developed cumulonimbus cloud produces thunder and lightning, usually with rain and strong, gusting wind, and often with hail.
A storm including strokes of lightning, which cause the thunder, and draw off electrons earthward as part of the atmospheric electrical cycle.
- trophic efficiency
- trophic level
- trophoblast
- tropic
- tropical air
- tropical arid morphoclimatic zone
- tropical cyclone
- Tropical Cyclone Programme
- tropical dry forest
- tropical forest
- tropical montane forest
- tropical month
- tropical period
- Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission
- tropical rain forest
- tropical semi-arid morphoclimatic zone
- tropical storm
- tropical wet–dry morphoclimatic zone
- tropical year
- Tropic of Cancer
- Tropic of Capricorn
- tropics
- tropism
- tropomyosin
- troponin