It seems like a no-trick question, that's one of those that is not important, but it's interesting when you hear it. You don't even pay attention to such natural phenomena, especially in the frantic rhythm of modern life. You remember the winter of the middle lane, and you cannot remember that there were thunderstorms with lightning.
But it turns out that they are the same as that gopher which is not visible.
Thunderstorms occur when the air is highly unstable, which happens when the air temperature drops with height very quickly and the air is rich in moisture and is sufficiently warmed up in the lower atmosphere. Thunderstorm development requires significant energy, concentrated in a relatively small volume of a cumulonimbus cloud.
This energy is drawn from water vapor, which, rising up and cooling, condenses, releasing heat. Conditions favorable for the formation of thunderstorms usually always exist in low latitudes, in areas with hot and humid climates - there they can occur all year round.
In temperate latitudes of the European part of Russia and Western Siberia, the prevailing number of thunderstorms is associated with cyclones and their frontal systems. Thunderstorms develop mainly on cold fronts, where their frequency is 70%. There are also thunderstorms of an intra-mass, convective nature, which are observed only in summer during the daytime. Of course, rarely, but thunderstorms are also noted in winter.
Thunderstorms tend to occur more frequently in spring or summer than in winter. But if in Moscow or St. Petersburg winter thunderstorms are a rarity, in Krasnodar, Stavropol Territories, in the Caucasus, they thunder several times during the winter season. For example, in the Olympic Krasnaya Polyana, near Sochi, there are several thunderstorms every year in January and February. Why is this happening?
For thunderclouds to form, a strong instability of air distribution is required. For example, a shaft of heavy cold air masses steps on a lighter warm air mass and displaces it upwards. Or, conversely, a warm front bumps into a cold one and slides upward along it.
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As the warm air rises upward, it expands and cools. The water molecules it contains turn into drops, that is, they condense. During condensation, a lot of heat is released, and therefore the air mass remains for a long time warmer and lighter than the surrounding masses, and rises higher and higher. The heat that is released during condensation is the main energy fuel for cumulonimbus (thunderstorm) clouds.
With an increase in altitude, the air temperature drops by about 6.5 ° C with every kilometer. If on the surface of the Earth it is 15 ° С, then at an altitude of 2.5 km it is already 0 ° С, at an altitude of 5 km - minus 17 ° С, and at an altitude of 8 km - minus 37 ° С. Therefore, in order for the rising air mass to remain warmer and lighter for as long as possible, it is important that initially there is enough moisture in it. The velocity of the ascending streams increases from 3–5 to 15–20 m / s. In powerful thunderstorm clouds, the wind speed in the center of the thunderstorm cell reaches 40 and even 60 m / s. For comparison: the speed of a car is 144 km / h - this is 40 m / s. If you stick your hand out of the window of a car moving at this speed, it becomes clear how powerful the wind is.
When the air saturated with droplets cools to temperatures below 0 ° C, the droplets begin to freeze. And crystallization, like condensation, is accompanied by the release of heat, albeit much less. This is enough to throw fuel into the unwinding flywheel of a thunderstorm cell, which reaches a size of several kilometers in a developed cumulonimbus cloud. As a result, the cloud rises very high, sometimes even breaks through the tropopause and enters the stratosphere, at an altitude of 12–18 km. Such clouds are visible along the anvil in their upper part.
Average thunderstorm clouds reach heights of 8-10 km in our latitudes (the top edge of the clouds). At altitude, the water in the cloud turns out to be in different phases: some droplets are supercooled to temperatures of minus 20–25 ° C, but remain liquid, others crystallize, forming snowflakes, rump and, finally, hail. A whole "zoo" of hydrometeors in a variety of phase states of water dynamically lives in a thundercloud.
Hydrometeors sweep in a turbulent air stream, collide, crash, rub against each other and charge at the same time. Small particles are, on average, positively charged, and larger ones negatively. In the gravitational field, large particles descend to the bottom of the cloud, while small ones remain at the top. Charge separation takes place, and quite strong electric fields are created in the cloud.
Direct breakdown of air - as with a spark discharge, which can be created in a stun gun or a school electrophore machine - does not occur in thunderclouds. There are many hypotheses about how lightning is born. While scientists argue, every second on Earth, up to a hundred lightning flashes brightly. The air in the lightning zone explosively turns into plasma with a temperature of 30 thousand degrees and expands sharply, generating thunder.
In winter, air masses contain much less water molecules that have not turned into drops and snowflakes. That is, winter air masses contain less energy that could be released during condensation and crystallization and create powerful air circulation to form a thundercloud. Therefore, the charging of hydrometeors is not so efficient.
Nevertheless, if a powerful warm and humid air mass comes to us from the basins of warmer oceans and seas, intense convection can begin, sufficient to form a thundercloud. In such conditions, winter thunderstorms occur in central Russia, accompanied by snowfall.
In Krasnodar, Stavropol Territories, in the Caucasus, thunderstorms happen several times during the winter. The combination of mountains and the Black Sea creates special conditions. Moist, fast sea air, rising along the slopes of the Caucasus Range, cools even better than if it collided with a cold air mass. As it rises, condensation occurs and clouds form, not necessarily thunderstorms.
Therefore, mountain peaks are often cloudy. Even in good weather, cloud caps are visible on such high mountains as Elbrus. But for the formation of a cumulonimbus cloud, the air mass must have a large supply of moisture and an initial speed of movement. Therefore, almost everywhere on Earth, there are still much more thunderstorms in summer than in winter, with the exception of one anomalous place.
On the northwestern coast of the Sea of Japan, in the crescent region from Wajima to Niigata and Akita, there are more stormy days in winter than in summer. In the winter season, the dry polar air masses of Eastern Siberia collide with the warm air current coming from the East China Sea through the narrow Tsushima Strait (Tsushima Current). In this case, low, but very horizontally extended and fast-moving convective clouds are formed, turning into thunderstorm clouds.
Most of the lightning that is born in these clouds strikes the sea, and fewer reach the coast. But even this is enough for there to be many more cases of lightning strikes into tall buildings in winter than in summer - more precisely, cases of lightning rises from structures, that is, ascending lightning. Perhaps this is because the clouds carry the main charged areas low above the ground.
Japanese winter thunderstorms have peculiarities: lightning flashes in winter occur much lower than in summer. Usually a winter lightning flash consists of one strike (in summer, in central Russia, there are usually three or four strikes). But one winter blow with a relatively slow current brings a huge charge to the ground, up to 1000 coulombs.
A rare phenomenon observed:
In Moscow, a snow thunderstorm was observed on December 17, 1995, December 18, 2006 and December 26, 2011.
On December 27 and 29, 2014, a snow thunderstorm was observed in Ukraine - in Odessa, Nikolaev, Dnepropetrovsk and Izum, Kharkov region. In all cities during the thunderstorm there was a strong wind with snow.
On February 1, 2015, a snow storm was again observed in Moscow.
On December 9, 2015, a thunderstorm with snow was observed in Novosibirsk.
On March 20, 2016, a thunderstorm with snow was observed in the cities of Raduzhny, Kogalym (Khanty-Mansiysk Autonomous Okrug).
On October 30, 2016, a snow thunderstorm was observed on the coast of Primorsky Krai - the city of Nakhodka and its surroundings.
On December 03, 2016, a snow thunderstorm was observed in Murmansk.
On December 03, 2016, a snow thunderstorm was recorded in Simferopol.
On December 04, 2016, a snow thunderstorm was recorded in the city of Sevastopol.
On December 04, 2016, a snow thunderstorm was recorded in the village. Rodnikovo, Simferopol district.
On December 04, 2016 at about 18.30 a snow thunderstorm was recorded in Ust-Kamenogorsk, the Republic of Kazakhstan.
On December 05, 2016 at about 16.00 a snow thunderstorm was recorded in the city of Kemerovo, Kemerovo region.
On the night from 04 to 05 December 2016, a snow thunderstorm was recorded in the district of Novorossiysk, Krasnodar Territory.
December 6, 2016 at 12:30 in Tambov.
December 09, 2016 from 23:30 to 00:44 was observed in Taganrog, Rostov region.
On December 11, 2016 at 5:35 am, there was one outbreak in the town of Polyarny, Murmansk region.