Describe the formation of a thunderstorm. Fill in the blanks with the appropriate vocabulary words. No word will be
used twice:
Lift Coalesce Cool Moisture Precipitation Warmer
Updrafts Downdrafts Condenses Latent Convection Cell
In order for a thunderstorm to form, there must be abundant____________________ in the lower atmosphere, a
mechanism to ____________________ the air, and the portion of the atmosphere through which the cloud grows must
be ____________________. Air can only rise if it is ____________________ than the air around it. During the first stage
of thunderstorm development, air rises vertically creating ____________________. Moisture ____________________
into cloud droplets, releasing ____________________ heat. Those cloud droplets ____________________ and
eventually form precipitation. During the mature stage, ____________________ falls and cools the air around it. Cool air
sinks creating ____________________. Updrafts and downdrafts form a ____________________. During the final stage,
downdrafts eventually ____________________ the area where the warm air was fueling the storm. Updrafts stop, and
the storm rains out the rest of its precipitation.
