Dirty thunderstorm

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A dirty thunderstorm is caused by ash and rock interacting inside a cloud instead of ice particles.

As you can imagine, you can get this with volcanoes, which can be pretty spectacular.

See more about how lightning forms inside a thunder cloud.

Published 14 Apr 2016

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Lake-effect snow

Red volcano gray volcano - a red volcano's effusive eruption has lava flowing down its slope while a gray volcano's explosive eruption shoots ash into the air

Red volcano, grey volcano

Two hikers look at distant lightning and count how long it takes to hear the thunder to estimate how far the lightning is away

Flash-to-bang method

Thunder clouds

Pour, don’t dip when sharing snacks

Nature’s greatest snow machine, where crazy amounts of snow can fall in huge snowstorms on the downwind — leeward — side of a lake. Where the effect is pronounced, such as on the East of some of the Great Lakes in the US, it can generate regions known as snow belts because of the amount of snow they receive. It works kind of like this: cold air blows over a lake. As the cold air passes over the warmer lake it picks up water vapour from the lake and it warms. This causes it to rise and in turn cool, such that when it reaches the downwind side of the lake it is now a lot of cold moist air which can cause some incredible snowstorms, like 2–3 inches of snow per hour. Satellite pictures like these show it in action pretty clearly. If the land rises after the lake, the air can cool faster and increase the effect — and also cause a rain shadow — and if there’s a whole lot of convection and the air is rising fast, you can get what’s called thundersnow — a thunderstorm in a snowstorm. I know. Stay warm out there. Find the weather interesting? Me too. Also see: Dirty thunderstorms Thunderclouds Yesterday’s weather (applying weather forecasting to productivity forecasting) Rain shadow Lenticular clouds Know your cirrostratus from your altocumulus British weather Banner clouds…Nature’s greatest snow machine, where crazy amounts of snow can fall in huge snowstorms on the downwind — leeward — side of a lake. Where the effect is pronounced, such as on the East of some of the Great Lakes in the US, it can generate regions known as snow belts because of the amount of snow they receive. It works kind of like this: cold air blows over a lake. As the cold air passes over the warmer lake it picks up water vapour from the lake and it warms. This causes it to rise and in turn cool, such that when it reaches the downwind side of the lake it is now a lot of cold moist air which can cause some incredible snowstorms, like 2–3 inches of snow per hour. Satellite pictures like these show it in action pretty clearly. If the land rises after the lake, the air can cool faster and increase the effect — and also cause a rain shadow — and if there’s a whole lot of convection and the air is rising fast, you can get what’s called thundersnow — a thunderstorm in a snowstorm. I know. Stay warm out there. Find the weather interesting? Me too. Also see: Dirty thunderstorms Thunderclouds Yesterday’s weather (applying weather forecasting to productivity forecasting) Rain shadow Lenticular clouds Know your cirrostratus from your altocumulus British weather Banner clouds

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