Capping thunderstorm development

BOWLING GREEN, Ky. – It was a hot, humid day and you were expecting a thunderstorm to cool the air…

The ingredients were there, but it never happened. And you’re wondering, why?

The answer may have been just over your head. Literally. 

It’s called a capping inversion.

Usually, the atmosphere cools as you go higher up in it, and warmer pockets of air at the surface rise through the cooler air.

But where there’s a cap on the atmosphere, there’s a layer of warm air above the cooler air…like a lid on a pot of boiling water.

And that keeps storms from forming.

Sometimes, the air at the surface warms enough to rise and break the cap.

Or a front moves in and causes the air to rise, and that lift in the atmosphere breaks the cap, and booming thunder, along with drenching rain, results.