KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Did you know that a typical cloud floating in the air weighs around 215,000 pounds, or about the weight of 20 elephants?
As that small cloud grows into a thunderstorm or a cumulonimbus cloud, it will weigh more than 100 million pounds, the equivalent to 100,000 elephants.
Yet, the huge cloud will float in the sky because dry air weighs more than humid air. The rising warm air holds the clouds in the sky until raindrops form and become heavy enough to fall to the ground.
That’s when the power of a thunderstorm is released.
Thunderstorms produce all types of precipitation including rain, sleet, hail, and snow. The biggest dangers produced by a thunderstorm include hail, lightning, damaging winds, and of course the tornado.
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There are different types of thunderstorms ranging from a seemingly harmless single cell, weak thunderstorm to the supercell thunderstorm. The supercell is the most powerful thunderstorm produced, as it lasts longer and produces most of the severe weather we see.
There are more supercells in the United States than anywhere else in the world. The reason is due to the Rocky Mountains and the Gulf of Mexico.
Air flows over the Rocky Mountains and interacts with the high humidity from the Gulf of Mexico. Severe thunderstorms and tornadoes are the results that happen most often in Tornado Alley. This is also why 75 percent of the world’s tornadoes happen in the United States.
Respecting every thunderstorm is critical to staying safe when severe weather strikes. Thunderstorms can produce all of the severe weather we are used to dealing with, including the tornado.
Even the weakest ones can produce lightning and can be deadly, so get inside when thunderstorms form.
