13.1: Introduction

Lightning strikes the water from a thunderstorm in Northern Sicily (CC BY-SA 2.0).

Thunderstorms are deep convective clouds that have a large vertical extent all the way from the boundary layer to the tropopause. Thunderstorms often bring a variety of severe weather such as heavy rain, hail, lightning, damaging winds, and, occasionally, tornados. Thunderstorms are sometimes thought to be synonymous with cumulonimbus clouds, though not all cumulonimbus clouds are thunderstorms.

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