50 marks question define Three Types of rainfall
Answers
Answer:
There are three types of rainfall;conventional,orographic and frontal rainfall. Convectional rainfall occurs when the energy of the sun (or insolation) heats the earth's surface and causes water to evaporate changing to water vapor. This warm, moist air then rises and as it rises it cools.
Answer:
Types of Rainfall
There are three main types of rainfall that occur frequently and depend on a variety of factors.
Relief Rainfall
This type of rainfall is common in places with mountains and sea. Relief rainfall frequently occurs near mountains beside the sea. The moisture-laden wind blows in from the sea because the wind meets a high mountain and hence it is forced to rise upwards. At the height, it is cooled and then the cloud is formed.
This saturated cloud with water vapor begins to precipitate on the side of the mountain facing the sea. This front side of the mountain is called the windward side.
The cloud mostly precipitates on the windward side of the mountain. Meanwhile, the cloud meets the other side, which is called the leeward side. Since the cloud has already lost most of its moisture so it rains very little there.
This makes leeward sides of a mountain very little rains. There is a much more moist climate on the windward sides of slopes. On the other hand, there is a more dry, sheltered climate on the leeward side. This rainfall is common in Hawaii, Sierra Nevada, and the Andes.
Convectional Rainfall
Suppose we are enjoying the rays of sunshine and suddenly, the sky gets darker with the grey cloud. Without any warning the heavens open and it begins to rain, with a thundery feel. This is the convectional rain. It occurs frequently on hot days usually giving cumulus cloud and thundery showers.
The sun heats the ground which causes the air to warm and become very hot. Then the air rises upwards and becomes cool. Then it condenses to form cumulus cloud.
When this cloud is saturated, it begins to precipitate giving heavy and thundery showers. Due to this, we get thundershowers on a hot day, as the Sun warms the air and it rises, cools and begins to rain.
Frontal Rainfall
This rainfall occurs when a warm, tropical air mass comes in contact with a cold, polar air mass. It is very common in Britain and Ireland. Because the air is in the warm front, then it rises over the cold front. The air is cooled and so condenses to form a stratus cloud. Thus when the stratus cloud becomes saturated, it begins to precipitate.