Air-mass Thunderstorm - Aviation Concerns

Aviation Concerns

In areas where these thunderstorms form in isolation and horizontal visibility is good, pilots can evade these storms rather easily. In more moist atmospheres which become hazy, pilots navigate above the haze layer in order to get a better vantage point of these storms. Flying under the anvil of thunderstorms is not advised, as hail is more likely to fall in such areas outside the thunderstorm's main rain shaft. When an outflow boundary forms due to a shallow layer of rain-cooled air spreading out near ground level from the parent thunderstorm, both speed and directional wind shear can result at the leading edge of the three dimensional boundary. The stronger the outflow boundary is, the stronger the resultant vertical wind shear will become.