The one answer I’ve found from long ago is “Sometimes, especially after rain, the dense cold air gets moist and becomes denser. If it gets dense enough, it falls and compresses hot air beneath it, disallowing it from rising and trapping it there.”
But I don’t understand how that can work. Gasses and liquids cannot trap other gasses or liquids below them that is why is you breath out underwater the bubbles move to the surface.
In: Physics
A heat dome happens when a high-pressure system traps a mass of hot air beneath it. Think of it like a lid on a pot: the high-pressure system acts as the lid, preventing the hot air from escaping.
In more detail, the high-pressure system pushes down on the air below it. This compresses the air, which heats it up even more and keeps it from rising and dissipating. As the sun continues to heat the ground, the trapped air gets hotter, leading to a build-up of extreme heat over several days.
So, unlike water where bubbles rise to the surface, a heat dome works because the high-pressure system effectively seals in the heat, creating a “dome” of hot air that can’t escape.
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