Like a bubble in a pool, this warmer and lighter air rises more swiftly, leading to even more rapid condensation. Meanwhile, increasing amounts of fresh air drawn into the base of the cloud keep the condensation going. This process of rising, condensation, heating, and faster rising currents is called convection . Without it, there would be no thunderstorms. Even the meanest thunderstorm needs something to get it going.
Nothing happens until the air starts rising.
For many thunderstorms, the updrafts begin with air heated by the sunlit ground below. Some storms, though, start with the air currents in different sections of cyclones, especially where the cold front wedges under the moist air and shoves it upward. There s plenty of water in the air, and no shortage of sunlight and fronts to get those currents going. Nonetheless, thunderstorms are relatively infrequent. Even those places that get thundered on one hundred days year don t get thundered on the other 265 days.