Thunderstorm Effects
Types of Thunderstorms:
| 1. Airmass Thunderstorm: | Form in warm, moist airmasses, and are isolated or scattered over a large area. Usually caused by solar heating of the land, and are most common on hot summer afternoons when the winds are light, or in coastal areas at night. They usually cover large areas, and may be embedded in other clouds. |
| 2. Frontal Thunderstorm: | These can be associated with any type of front. Those in warm fronts are often obscured by stratiform clouds, and you can expect to see them when there is showery precipitation. In a cold front, the storms are often visible in a continuous line parallel to the frontal surface. |
| 3. Squall Line Thunderstorm: | A narrow band of active thunderstorms which contain very severe weather. They often form 50-200 miles ahead of a fast moving cold front. The existence of a front is not necessary for a squall line to form. |
Thunderstorm Hazards:
| Lightning: | It is found throughout the whole cloud. It rarely causes personal damage or substantial damage to your aircraft. It can cause temporary lose of vision, puncture aircraft skin, or damage electronic navigation and communications equipment. |
| Hail: | You can encounter hail in flight, even when it is not reaching the surface. Large hailstones have been encountered in clear air several miles downwind from a storm. Hail can cause extensive damage in a short time. |
| Turbulence: | Within the storm cloud, the greatest turbulence occurs in the shear between the updrafts and downdrafts. Near the surface there is an area of low-level turbulence which develops as the downdrafts spread out at the surface. This can extend many miles from the center of the storm. |
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