From ground-school days onward, soaring pilots learn to respect thunderstorms. They are to be respected because the updraughts and downdraughts stretching through the depth of the troposphere can be intense, to say the least. Strong updraughts have whisked pilots to above 10,000m like leaves in a vacuum cleaner.
If this happens it is usually because several warning signs were not respected or a storm, or a line of storms, moved in extremely quickly. Sometimes storms can move in at over 30 knots (55km/h) and the sky can change very quickly. The other danger from thunderstorms is the extreme downdraughts that spill outward as a gust front. This is best thought of as the broken dam or avalanche of the sky.
Caught by the outflow
A growing thunderstorm with its strong updraughts is easier to spot than the outflow and associated gust front. This is especially true when the gust front is produced by a storm that is far away and when visibility is limited, or view of the storm is blocked by terrain. Therefore,...
