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Convective precipitation falls over a certain area for a relatively short time, as convective clouds have limited vertical and horizontal extent and do not conserve much water. Most precipitation in the tropics appears to be convective; however, it has been suggested that stratiform and convective precipitation often both occur within the same ...
A tornado is a dangerous rotating column of air in contact with both the surface of the earth and the base of a cumulonimbus cloud (thundercloud), or a cumulus cloud in rare cases. Tornadoes come in many sizes but typically form a visible condensation funnel whose narrowest end reaches the earth and is surrounded by a cloud of debris and dust .
Also actiniform. Describing a collection of low-lying, radially structured clouds with distinct shapes (resembling leaves or wheels in satellite imagery), and typically organized in extensive mesoscale fields over marine environments. They are closely related to and sometimes considered a variant of stratocumulus clouds. actinometer A scientific instrument used to measure the heating power of ...
A group of accessory clouds comprise formations that are associated mainly with upward-growing cumuliform and cumulonimbiform clouds of free convection. Pileus is a cap cloud that can form over a cumulonimbus or large cumulus cloud, [ 99 ] whereas a velum feature is a thin horizontal sheet that sometimes forms like an apron around the middle or ...
Discrete convective cells in the atmosphere can be identified by clouds, with stronger convection resulting in thunderstorms. Natural convection also plays a role in stellar physics. Convection is often categorised or described by the main effect causing the convective flow; for example, thermal convection.
A mesoscale convective complex (MCC) is a unique kind of mesoscale convective system which is defined by characteristics observed in infrared satellite imagery. Their area of cold cloud tops exceeds 100,000 square kilometres (39,000 sq mi) with temperature less than or equal to −32 °C (−26 °F); and an area of cloud top of 50,000 square ...
Cumulus clouds are common east of the dry line in the moist sector, though they are taller with greater development along the dry line itself. [12] The moist sector is normally capped with a lid of an elevated mixed drier layer which represents subsidence from aloft as the surface air cools and contracts at night.
Field of cumulus clouds. Weather and climate model gridboxes have sides of between 5 kilometres (3.1 mi) and 300 kilometres (190 mi). A typical cumulus cloud has a scale of less than 1 kilometre (0.62 mi), and would require a grid even finer than this to be represented physically by the equations of fluid motion.