What are Thunderstorms and Spanish plumes?

 What are Spanish Plumes and Thunderstorms?

Thunderstorms originate from cumulonimbus cloud, which is convective clouds. They can happen throughout the year. In winter, they can bring snow and thunder, which is why thundersnow has been called thundersnow. Thunderstorms are most common in the summer because of the higher heat and thus more energy to produce these massive clouds.

To create a thunderstorm, a buoyant atmosphere is necessary. This also requires a lot of energy. Warm air rises and cools. The water condenses, forming tiny droplets of water. If there is enough buoyancy in air, the updraft is strong and rapid and the water vapour quickly forms a cumulonimbus clouds.

As the warm air rises, water droplets form larger droplets. These droplets freeze to make ice crystals. The circulating air in clouds causes water to freeze on the droplet or crystal's surface. The updraughts and air eventually make the droplets too heavy and they begin to fall as hail.

When hail is moving within the cloud, it picks up a positive charge from rubbing against small positively charged crystals. A negative charge forms where hail accumulates at the cloud's bottom. The lighter ice crystals stay near the top and create a positively charged charge.

The Earth's surface attracts the negative charge. If the attraction is too strong, the positive or negative charges will combine, or discharge, to equalize the difference in lightning flashes. Thunderstorms are caused by lightning's rapid expansion of air and heating. Thunderstorms occur quite often on Earth. According to estimates, lightning strikes occur on Earth 44 times per second. That's nearly 1.4 million lightning strikes each year.

Thunderstorms are caused by intense heating and are more common in regions with hot and humid weather. Storms are more frequent on land masses than in the oceans, and more often than in tropical areas.

The UK's most frequent thunderstorms occur from the East Midlands and Southeast England.

Spanish Plume

A particular weather condition may see lightning at its most extreme. Avoiding being outdoors during this time is highly recommended. It is known as a Spanish plume.

Three main ingredients are usually involved in a Spanish Plumme Event:

Warm air moving north from Spain's plateau on a southerly wind. While this can happen at any time, the summer months are when it's most common. The extra warmth and moisture in the airflow leads to more energy for storm development.

Cooler air rising from the west is often associated with cold fronts.

Strong summer sunshine heats air near and at the surface of France and the UK.

Because hot air is more dense than cold air, very warm northwards air will move from Spain towards the UK. This unstable air rises, and it cools down, leading to cumulonimbus. Choosing the clouds or the lightning?