Some heavy weather will hit the North Central states Tuesday and Tuesday night. The severe thunderstorms will be riding the crest of a heat wave coming out of the Southwest. This type of hot air forcing typically creates strong to severe thunderstorms and sometimes those large MCCs that form at night. So just exactly what is an MCC?
Nighttime thunderstorms form in a somewhat different way than their daytime counterparts. At night, the sun's heating has been turned off, so a storm must find a different source of fuel. This comes from warm, humid air being injected through the lower portions of the atmosphere. This combined with a colder flow aloft produces the instability necessary for thunderstorm growth. At night, thunderstorms will often gather in a massive cluster. These monsters are called MCCs which is short for Mesoscale Convective Complex. These systems are self sustaining and often have a life span of several hours.
Story by AccuWeather.com Expert Senior Meteorologist John Kocet.
No comments:
Post a Comment