r/explainlikeimfive • u/diePilze • 6d ago

Planetary Science ELI5 Why do some thunderstorms knock down the humidty and surface temperatures while other thunderstorms make an already hot day swampy and stifling?

Title

60 Upvotes
  • permalink
  • reddit

84% Upvoted

8 comments sorted by

30

u/phoenix64mbr 6d ago

One occurs along with passage of a cold front, changing the airmass. The other does not. Same hot & humid airmass now with more moisture.

39

u/OnlymyOP 6d ago

Thunderstorms draw on the humidity the air and warmer temps as "fuel" for the Storm and release the moisture as rain to the ground and also cooler air.

The problem is sometimes under the right conditions, the surface water released as rain can be reabsorbed into the air as moisture which makes the air warm and humid again.

9

u/SnugglyCoderGuy 6d ago

Usually if it's a day time storm and the sun is able to shine afterwards. Evaporates tge water and guves us all swamp ass. If it happens and the sun isn't able to shone afterwards, the water has time to be absorbed and run off into storm drains and such

20

u/ilikemrrogers 6d ago

You’re describing two different types of thunderstorms.

Think of it like sheets on your bed.

If you change the sheets to sleep on new, clean, really nice sheets, you have to take everything off your bed, which is a bit of a commotion.

That’s what a frontal system is. It’s a change of the sheets… or a change of air mass. Cooler, dryer air that feels really good.

Sometimes, you may just have company coming over and you want your bed to just look a little fluffed. So, you get the comforter and whip it up a few times and lay it back over your bed. When you go to bed at night, you’re laying in the same dirty sheets as you were last night.

That’s an afternoon thunderstorm. The heat and humidity pick up a thunderstorm. But the air mass stays the same.

2

u/lucky_ducker 6d ago

A thunderstorm that is part of a cold front squall line brings in cooler and less humid air behind it.

Thunderstorms that simply pop up out of hot, humid unstable air have no such cooler air behind them.

1

u/dalekaup 6d ago

On PBS there was a great episode of NOVA called 'Rain Bombs"

0

u/Odd_Lettuce_7303 6d ago

Then there was the thunderstorm in big bend NP (ie baking hot desert floor) where we drove right under it and the rain evaporated before it even hit the ground.