Review Questions
for Chapter 15 - Thunderstorms and Tornadoes
- What kind of environment is favorable for thunderstorm
formation?
- How are they initiated?
- From an atmospheric stability point of view, what is the
role of thunderstorms in the atmosphere?
- Qualitatively, what is the spatial distribution of
thunderstorms and hail occurrence around the country?
- How long does a typical air-mass thunderstorm last?
- What characteristics are observed during each of the
three stages of an air mass thunderstorm?
- How are overshooting tops generated and what do they look
like in satellite imagery?
- What is a downburst (macrobursts and microbursts)?
- What factors help to generate a downdraft?
- How is a mesohigh generated?
- What is a gust front? What sequence of events are
observed when it passes your location?
- What is the NWS definition of a severe thunderstorm?
- What kind of weather can they produce?
- What two factors characterize a severe thunderstorm
environment?
- Supercell thunderstorms:
- how long can they last and how far can they
travel?
- what is a mesocyclone?
- how is the mid-level mesocyclone generated in a
supercell?
- what is the wall cloud?
- tornadoes:
- where do most of them occur around the country?
- on average, how long to they last, what is the
length of their damage path, and how strong are
they?
- What is the F-scale and how was it derived?
- How are tornadoes observed?
- what is a hook echo?
- What are the characteristics of a squall line?
- What is a bow echo and where are they commonly observed?
- What is a Derecho? What kind of damage do they commonly
produce?
- What is a Mesoscale Convective Complex?
- What ingredients are necessary for severe thunderstorms?
- What are Doppler radar radial velocities? What will a
divergence and rotational signature look like in the
radial velocity data?
- Lightning:
- How fast does a thunder sound wave travel
- What is refraction?
- why is it that sometimes you can see the
lightning but can not hear the thunder?
- what types of storms produce lightning?
- what is the charge distribution in a
thunderstorm?
- what are the sequence of events leading to the
lightning discharge?