I know nothing about geology but am from a place where there are always sudden thunder storms out of no where and I sometimes pay attention to our observatory rader screen.
So what I see is that sometimes huge thick red/orange/yellow clouds coming from the sea and we will know the whole day will be rainy, but sometimes the rader shows 30 minutes ago there’s absolutely no cloud anywhere near my city but then suddenly a green cloud shows up over an area and within 15 minutes it becomes orange and red, meaning there’s thunder storm and huge rain in that area.
Why? Those clouds just come from no where and can form from nothing to suddenly huge thick red thunderstorm clouds in just 15-20 minutes?
Thanks!
Edit: just in case you guys dont know what I refer to as green/yellow/orange/red clouds… I’m referring to this:– [https://www.weather.gov.hk/en/wxinfo/radars/radar_range1.htm](https://www.weather.gov.hk/en/wxinfo/radars/radar_range1.htm)
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Probably depends a lot on your location (how close to bodies of water, how mountainous/hilly it is… and a few other things)
I’d imagine your area gets dew on the grass in the mornings, before sunrise, everything looks clear and ok… but as the sun rises, it evaporates all that water (and maybe mixed in some evaporated ocean water if that’s nearby) and that now moist/warming air can rise up into the sky, where it mixes with the cool upper atmosphere air, causing the moisture to condense into raindrops…
The speed at which this happens will mostly depend on the wind speed
When air is warm, it holds a lot more moisture than when it’s cold, and that moisture is invisible (it’s not clouds yet, just humidity). When warm air with a lot of moisture meets cold air, clouds form very quickly and you can get thunderstorms. Does the weather data source you use show warm and cold fronts? They usual look like red or blue lines with little triangles or circular showing which way the line is moving.
Thunderstorms are born from a combination of hot, rising air and humidity in the air. Take note that warm air can hold more water, and cooler air cannot hold as much. Daytime heating of the ground causes the air above it to rise. That air, along with the water in it rises. As it rises further from the hot ground it cools down. Once it cools down to where it can’t hold onto the water in it anymore that water condenses into clouds. The clouds are like a sponge and eventually the sponge is so wet it starts dripping out all the water in it. The water held by the air is invisible until it reaches the critical tipping point of 100% humidity.
They form out of the humidity on the air around you.
They can literally form directly over your head.
Very humid air is forces to rise quickly. This is often due to and invisible, intruding wall of cold air moving into the area.
This thrusts the water filled hot air up faster than normal, and causes it to chill as the pressure drops with altitude.
So instead of slowly building a layer of clouds as the air rises in it’s own, you get a huge mass of clouds very quickly.
The next kicker is that condensing water… Releases heat. Which actually fuels further cloud formation.
And if you make a large amount of clouds quickly, this heat injection is very large causing huge updrafts…. Which pulls up more wet humid air… Which condenses… And you get a feedback loop.
This is why thunderstorms seem to grow rapidly in height.
Thunderstorm clouds form when warm, moist air rises in the atmosphere. The air rises because it is less dense than the surrounding air. The rising air creates an area of low pressure. As the air continues to rise, it cools and condenses into water droplets. The water droplets form clouds.
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