Why do thunderstorms occur? This experiment will explain
Have your kids ever looked up into the summer sky and watched a small, harmless cloud somehow grow bigger and bigger until it became a ferocious thunderstorm? Well, thunderstorms form when warm, wet air rises in a massive, quick updraft to cooler areas of the atmosphere, forming layers of warm, moist air. The liquid in the updraft condenses there, forming massive cumulonimbus clouds and, eventually, precipitation. This process is called convection current. Here’s an easy experiment that can be carried out at home to demonstrate this concept to your school-goers.
The experiment
Introduce your kids to the fascinating world of convection currents with a simple home experiment.
What you’ll need
- A clear, rectangular glass container
- A jar full of water
- A spoon
- A pair of plastic tongs
- Ice cube tray
- Food colours (red and blue)
How-to:
Get these on a table, call your kids and start the experiment. Here’s a step-by-step guide for them to follow.
- Fill an ice cube tray with water and then put one drop of blue food colouring into each slot in the tray.
- Then, using a spoon, mix the food colouring in the tray and place it in the freezer.
- When the blue ice cubes are frozen, fill a clear rectangular container with room temperature water.
- Now, pour enough room temperature water into the container to fill it about 3/4 of the way to the top. For the experiment to work correctly, the water must be at room temperature only.
- Now, using the plastic tongs, gently place four or five blue ice cubes in water on one side of the rectangular glass container.
- Simultaneously, drop several drops of red food colouring into the water on the other side of the rectangular glass container.
- It could be easier to put the blue ice cubes and red food colouring in at the same time if your kids help you with this stage.
- Watch and enjoy as the beginning stages of a cold front start to form in the water.
- Blue water will melt off the ice cubes and sink to the bottom, spreading to the red water on the opposite side, while you and the kids watch in awe.
- Next, the blue and the red water will collide in the centre of the rectangular glass container.
- As they collide, the colder, blue water which has a higher density will settle at the bottom while pushing the lighter and warmer, red water upwards.
How did thunderstorm occur in the glass container?
Convection currents are circulation patterns that occur in the atmosphere, ocean, and the Earth's mantle as a result of this movement. This thunderstorm science experiment is a fantastic representation of how convection currents and thunderstorms function in the amazing world of weather. The blue water represents the cold, dense air behind a cold front, which causes the warmer, less dense air ahead of it to rise. Warm, wet air rising into the sky following a cold front cools and condenses into clouds, which can expand into thunderstorms.