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It’s that time of year again — the time when afternoon temperatures reach a smothering point before winds pick up and the skies burst apart with lightning and thunder and cloudbursts drop cooling rain.
“It’s been rather calm this year,” Dr. Michaels said, adding the season picks up in May and runs through October with most all rainfall during these months a result of thunderstorms or tropical storms which display thunderstorm conditions.
Even though thunderstorms have been infrequent, rainfall for the area is high. Weatherwatcher Dennis Wingfield from Sperryville reports 3.2 inches so far for the month of May — a comparable measurement to past years of 1985 when the area received 4.89 inches in the month, or 5.18 inches in 1987 or a high of 9.52 in 1988. Even in 1989, when everything was wet, the month’s precipitation levels equaled only 7.68 inches.
While thunderstorms are major suppliers of precipitation during the summer months, their total precipitation yield is low due to run-off, evaporation and inconsistancy — a storm can strike one area but not drop any rain on an area just miles away.
Dr. Michaels explains thunderstorms “develop when the temperature difference between surface temperatures and upper layers of the atmosphere become so great — it creates a bubble which is transported upward.” Thus thunder is produced by the “explosive compression of air between clouds” due to
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