Weather Hazards

Bad Weather conditions can cause heavy damages to the environment and agitate everyday life. An imbalance in the phenomenon of nature can bring about great change on the weather maps. This article helps you understand main weather hazards responsible for bringing bad weather condition.

Severe Thunderstorms are a common sight in an area experiencing bad weather conditions. Thunderstorms could result in lightning, heavy rains, tornadoes or hailstones causing bad weather with lot of destruction to human life and assets. When the water vapour inside a cloud condenses to become ice a large amount of heat energy is given out during this transition and the process produces hailstones. Strong rising air currents are produced as a result of this. In contrast to this cool descending air currents give rise to downdraughts that break up the cloud when the rising air currents fade away. These Thunderstorms could normally last for 1 hour or more. The collision of ice inside a cloud creates electrical charges. These electrical charges come together to form the effect of lightning. Thunderstorms and lightning are connected to each other. Thunder is a rumbling sound coming from various parts of a storm. We see lightning instantaneously while we hear thunder a little later. This is because the speed of light is greater than the speed of sound.

Tornadoes can be defined as a bad weather condition in which strong air currents take the shape of a funnel and create massive destruction wherever they spread. The damage caused by the tornadoes is an effect of major wind violation. These tornadoes have the capacity to attract almost anything that comes under its spell like cattle, dogs, cats and at times even humans! Their intensity is unfathomable and once a tornado arises nothing can be done until it cools down.

The ice formed inside a storm cloud could cause yet another bad weather condition called as hailstones. Hailstones are made of ice and their size could be as big as a tennis ball. Hailstones are initially small in size but due to more and more water freezing over them they gradually grow in size and fall on earth with a speed of 50 meters per second causing huge damages. Crops can be ruined almost instantaneously with a single spell of hailstones.

Hurricanes are one of the powerful bad weather conditions causing great deal of damage such as floods in low lying coastlines. Heat energy released due to condensing water vapours makes these hurricanes extremely powerful in nature. Hurricanes are destructive in nature causing torrential rains which in effect flood the land around it. Floods carry massive potential to wipe away any trace of life form that comes its way. Hurricanes instigating heavy rains or melting snow are two main causes of floods. The areas adjoining major rivers are mainly susceptible to the outpour of floods.

In contrast to flood where excess water poses a problem, drought is also a prime bad weather condition caused due to insufficient rains. Water is a basic necessity and having no rains for more than a couple of years can make the land infertile as it does not receive appropriate nourishment. As a result there are no crops available and this hampers the overall economy of the areas suffering from drought. Supplying water to such drought prone areas through extensive methods of irrigation can bring a ray of hope in the lives of people surviving there.

In today's fast moving world, knowledge about weather can be of prime importance for any decision relating to life. Whether you are planning a new trip for your vacation or deciding the location of your next business enterprise, knowledge of weather of the city you reside in has become a basic necessity.