List of severe weather phenomena

Severe weather phenomena are weather conditions that are hazardous to human life and property.

Severe weather can occur under a variety of situations, but three characteristics are generally needed: a temperature or moisture boundary, moisture, and (in the event of severe, precipitation-based events) instability in the atmosphere.

Examples

Atmospheric

• Fog
  • Haar (fog)
  • Ice fog

Electrical storms

• Thunderstorm
  • Derecho
  • Multicellular thunderstorm
  • Pulse storm
  • Squall line
  • Storm cell (single-cell)
  • Supercells, rotating thunderstorms
  • Lightning

Fire

• Wildfire or bushfire (ignition of wildfires is sometimes by lightning strike, especially in "dry thunderstorms")
  • Firestorm
  • Fire whirl, also called firenado and fire tornado

Flood

• Floods
  • Flash flood
  • Coastal flooding
  • Tidal flooding
  • Storm surge

Oceans and bodies of water

• Harmful algal bloom
  • Blue green algae
  • Red tide
• High seas
• Sneaker wave
• High tides
• King tide
• Ice shove
• Rogue wave
• Seiche
• Swell (ocean)
• Tidal surge
• Storm surge
• Rip currents
• Undertow (water waves)
• Whirlpools

Snow

• Avalanche
• Blizzard
• Lake effect snow
• Snownado
  • Snow devil
  • Polar vortex

Ice

• Black ice
• Glaze ice
• Hailstorm
• Ice shove
• Ice storm
• Megacryometeor

Rain

• Acid rain
• Blood rain
• Cold drop (Spanish: gota fría; archaic as a meteorological term), colloquially, any high impact rainfall event along the Mediterranean coast of Spain
• Drought, a prolonged water supply shortage, often caused by persistent lack of, or much reduced, rainfall
• Floods
  • Flash flood
• Rainstorm
• Red rain in Kerala (for related phenomena, see Blood rain)
• Monsoon

Surface movement

• Avalanche
• Mass wasting and landslips
• Earthquake
  • Landslide
  • Debris flows
  • Mudslide
  • Rockfall
  • Coastal erosion
  • Sinkhole

Temperature

• Cold wave
• Heat wave
• Heat burst
• Polar vortex

Volcano

• Volcanic eruption
• Volcanic lightning
• Volcanic ash

Wind

• Cyclones
  • Extratropical cyclone
    • European windstorms
    • Australian East Coast Low
  • "Medicane", Mediterranean tropical-like cyclones
  • Polar cyclone
  • Tropical cyclone, also called a hurricane, typhoon, or just "cyclone"
  • Subtropical cyclone
  • Australian east coast low
• Explosive cyclogenesis or weather bomb
• Dust storm
  • Haboob
  • Dust devil
  • Sandstorm
• Hurricane
• Katabatic winds
  • Bohemian wind
  • Bora
  • Piteraq
  • Gregale
  • Anabatic wind
  • Valley exit jet
  • Santa Ana winds
  • Williwaws
  • Chinook
• Gale
• Monsoon
• Nor’easter
• Nor'westers
• Steam devil
• Squall
  • Straight-line winds
  • Derecho
• Tornado (also colloquially referred to as a "whirlwind" or "twister")
  • Landspout
  • Gustnado, a "gust front tornado"
  • Waterspout
• Winter storms
• Wind gust
• Windstorm
• Gust front

Other

• Heat lightning
• Zud, widespread livestock death, mainly by starvation, caused by climatic conditions
• Hayfever
• Asthma

Some related meteorological terms: weather front, gust front, bow echo, Atmospheric river

Phenomena caused by severe thunderstorms

• Excessive Lightning
• Derecho
• Extreme wind (70 mph or greater)
• Downpours
• Heavy rain
• Flood, flash flood, coastal flooding
• Hail
• High winds – 93 km/h(58 mph) or higher.
• Lightning
• Thundersnow, Snowsquall
• Tornado
• Windstorm (gradient pressure induced)
• Severe thunderstorm (hailstorm, downburst: microbursts and macrobursts)
• Sprite (lightning)

Severe weather caused by humans

• Air pollution

See also

• Extreme weather
• List of weather-related phenomena
• Meteorology
• Severe weather terminology (United States)
• Space weather