Saudi Arabia | How did the warm weather contribute to the formation of the hail storm that affected the capital, Riyadh, on Wednesday?

Weather of Arabia - The capital, Riyadh, with the afternoon and evening hours on Wednesday, March 15, 2023, especially the northern and eastern parts of it, was exposed to a strong state of atmospheric instability, as a result of which cumulonimbus clouds formed in the sky of the Saudi capital, and heavy rains fell with heavy showers of hail despite the warmth High weather and temperatures. How did the warm weather contribute to the formation of thunderstorms and hailstorms that affected Riyadh?

Dense papyrus .. and scenes from the northern neighborhoods #Riyadh pic.twitter.com/WbbCc71esS

- Arab Weather - Saudi Arabia (@ArabiaWeatherSA) March 15, 2023

The cause of the hail storm in Riyadh

The Arab Weather team indicated that the scientific reasons behind the weather disturbances that affected Riyadh are due to the approach of a cold air mass in the upper layers of the atmosphere, and the exact opposite was happening in the layers of the atmosphere close to the surface of the earth, where it dominated at the same time a very warm air mass in lower layers of the atmosphere.

On that day, the capital, Riyadh, recorded a maximum temperature of about 30 degrees Celsius, which caused high heating of the earth's surface, which contributed to the processes of raising warm air to the upper atmosphere, in which there is a very cold air mass.

As a result of the strength of ascending warm air currents and the availability of quantities of moisture in the atmosphere with the presence of a thermal surface depression that contributed to facilitating the process of raising warm air upwards, which collided with the cold air mass, causing the formation of thick cumulus clouds, and as a result of temperature differences, thunderstorms were formed that can be described as strong. Which led to heavy rains accompanied by heavy showers of hail.

How did the hail fall despite the high temperatures?

In order for hail to form within cumulonimbus clouds, it needs several factors, including: the meeting of two air masses with different characteristics, one cold and the other warm, or in depressions and cold air fronts, or through the formation of convective clouds (as happened over the sky of the capital, Riyadh), where clouds grow in All layers of the atmosphere and reach high levels and become cumulative with a high vertical extension, then the temperature in that level is less than the freezing point.

The high temperatures have contributed to the availability of warm air currents to the top, and when there are upward air currents (lifting energy), they prevent water droplets in the clouds from descending to the surface of the earth and raise them to the upper layers of the atmosphere in which the temperature is less than zero degrees Celsius, and then The water droplets begin to freeze (transform from the liquid state to the solid) forming small ice crystals that try to descend to the surface of the earth, but because of their small size and the ability of the ascending air currents to carry them, they are lifted again to the upper layers of the atmosphere, then they are covered with new ice layers, and when the process is repeated several times, the ascending current He becomes unable to carry it and thus falls to the surface of the earth.

God knows.