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What causes thunder but no rain?
Dry thunderstorm refers to thunder and lightning that occur without bringing rain to the ground. In fact, the thunder-bearing clouds do produce rain but the rain droplets have evaporated in the air before reaching the ground. The anvil cloud is so high that rain coming from it evaporates before reaching the ground.
What causes dry thunderstorms?
Dry thunderstorms are generated when enough moisture from the Gulfs of Mexico and California is drawn over an area to form stormy clouds at high levels of the atmosphere. But because the air below the clouds is still dry, most of the rain that falls evaporates before it can quench the parched landscape below.
What causes thunder?
Answer. Thunder is caused by the rapid expansion of the air surrounding the path of a lightning bolt. As lightning connects to the ground from the clouds, a second stroke of lightning will return from the ground to the clouds, following the same channel as the first strike.
Does thunder always mean rain?
While some lightning often precedes rain, the main event occurs as a downdraft starts and rain or other precipitation falls. Eventually, the downdraft overcomes the updraft and the storm dissipates, along with the lightning.
Why do I hear thunder when it’s sunny?
The high humidity, in conjunction with warm temperatures, creates massive amounts of warm, moist air rising into the atmosphere, where it can easily form a thunderstorm. As the process of evaporation and condensation occurs, these droplets collide with other moisture that is condensing as it rises.
Are dry thunderstorms rare?
Dry thunderstorms are rare in most places east of the Rockies, he said, because there’s “always enough moisture for rain to fall from them or for precipitation in some form to fall from them anyway, in the eastern two-thirds of the U.S.” And in the case of dry thunderstorms, it can evaporate completely.”
What does it mean if thunder is really loud?
A big noise Why is thunder so loud? It’s because the amount of electrical energy that flows from the cloud to the ground is so enormous: it’s like a very big waterfall of electricity. The louder the sound that you hear, the closer you are to the lightning. Light travels through air much faster than sound.
Can it thunder while its sunny?
And yes, you can absolutely be hit by lightning on the kind of sunny day that the poets write about. So, clouds that create electrical charges cause lightning, then there has to be warm, humid air near the surface of the ground that travels up into the much cooler atmosphere.