Quiz #4 Study Guide Pt. 2
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Thunderstorms. Ordinary single cell (air mass) and severe thunderstorms (what would make a thunderstorm severe). Life cycle of an air mass thunderstorm. How can the dissipation of one storm lead to the formation of another? Thunderstorm features and, in some cases, processes that produce them: gust front, anvil cloud, shelf cloud, mammatus clouds, microburst. Wind shear. Why can a storm with a tilted updraft become stronger and last longer than a storm with a vertical updraft? Supercell thunderstorms.

Tornadoes. General characteristics: low pressure core, duration, length of path on the ground, diameter, speed of rotating winds, speed and usual direction of the movement on the ground. Life cycle. What causes the tornado cloud? Tornado season (when do the most tornadoes occur, when do the strongest tornadoes occur). Fujita scale. Tornado winds and damage. Multiple vortices, suction vortices. Mesocyclone and wall clouds. Tornado watches and warnings. Hook echo on radar.

Lightning. What creates the electricity in thunderstorms? Normal distribution of electrical charge in a thunderstorm. Intracloud and cloud-to-ground lightning. Sequence of events in a multi-stroke cloud-to-ground lightning flash: stepped leader, upward connecting discharge, first return stroke, dart leader(s) and subsequent return stroke(s). Unusual types of lightning and rocket-triggered lightning. Lightning hazards and safety. What produces thunder? Determining the distance to a lightning strike.  How/why do lightning rods and cars offer protection from lightning?

Sample Questions from the Fall 2000 packet.
Quiz #6: 1-5, 7-11, 13-16        Final Exam: 4, 28, 33a, 39, 51

Hurricanes.  We will begin this material before Quiz #4, but it won't be on the quiz.

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