Why are thunderstorms or hailstorms less likely to happen in the morning?

264 viewsOtherPlanetary Science

They happen in the night, and they happen in daytime. Why not in the morning? At least, why not so often?

In: Planetary Science

2 Answers

Anonymous 0 Comments

Those storms are driven largely by temperature gradient. During the day the ground warms up, warming up the air right over it, which is less dense and rises (convection). It’s this convection that ultimately drives the storm.

At night, without the sun to heat the ground, that convection slowly peters out and can even stop or reverse. It doesn’t stop immediately, because the ground builds up some heat over the day, and it takes awhile for it to go away.

So as the day goes on, the probability of a storm gets higher and higher due to the heating, then after sunset it subsides as the built up heat bleeds away, until morning, when the ground is coolest, and you have the lowest chance of a storm developing.

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