It’s spring in the Pampas — the time of year when vast, intense thunderstorms roil across the region, which extends from the foothills of the Andes Mountains in Argentina to the coasts of Brazil and Uruguay.
Next month, more than 150 scientists, including staff from the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), will head to Argentina as part of a field campaign to discover why these thunderstorms may be the most intense on Earth. The research project, funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF), aims to improve the prediction of severe storms.
Like the springtime storms that form on the U.S. Great Plains, the storms in the Pampas bring a variety of severe weather, including hail, damaging winds, torrential rains, and deadly tornadoes with catastrophic impacts. But the thunderstorms in the Southern Hemisphere are larger, have more lightning, and may produce more frequent large hail and flooding than their Northern Hemisphere counterparts.
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