What causes heavy rainfall at the equator?

What causes heavy rainfall at the equator?

Areas near the equator receive high rainfall amounts because constant solar heating produces intense heating, large-scale evaporation, moist rising air that cools with altitude and forms convectional rainfall. In addition, air masses converge here which results in heavy rainfall.

Does it rain a lot at the equator?

On the equator, there are two wet and two dry seasons as the rain belt passes over twice a year, one moving north and one moving south. Between the tropics and the equator, locations may experience both a short wet and a long wet season. Local geography may substantially modify these climate patterns.

What is the reason for heavy rainfall in tropical region?

The degree of a tropical cyclone rainfall impact depends upon speed of movement, storm size, and degree of vertical wind shear. One of the most significant threats from tropical cyclones is heavy rainfall. Large, slow moving, and non-sheared tropical cyclones produce the heaviest rains.

Why does the equator have a wet and a dry season?

Therefore, the ITCZ is responsible for the wet and dry seasons in the tropics. The sun crosses the equator twice a year in March and September, and consequently makes for two wet seasons each year. In December and July, when the sun is at its greatest extent north (or south) of the equator makes for two dry seasons.

Why does the Sahara get no rain?

Hot, moist air rises into the atmosphere near the Equator. As it approaches the tropics, the air descends and warms up again. The descending air hinders the formation of clouds, so very little rain falls on the land below. The world’s largest hot desert, the Sahara, is a subtropical desert in northern Africa.

Why does more rainfall occur?

As more and more droplets join together they become too heavy and fall from the cloud as rain. Warm air can hold more moisture than cool air. When the warmer air is cooled and the moisture condenses, it often rains more heavily.

Why do you think there is a lot of rain at the equator and between 30 and 60 degrees latitude and not in other latitudes?

Higher in the atmosphere, the now cold, dry air rises and moves away from the equator. At about 30 degree latitudes in both hemispheres (north and south), the air descends. As it does, it warms. As it warms, the air expands, condensation and precipitation are infrequent.

Is the equator wet or dry?

At the equator there are two wet and two dry seasons, as the rain belt passes over twice a year, once moving north and once moving south. Between the tropics and the equator, locations may experience a short wet and a long wet season; and a short dry and a long dry season.

Why does rainfall occur closer to the equator and coastline areas?

Areas near the equator get direct sunlight all year round, meaning that at noon the sun is right overhead. When the sunlight hits the surface of the earth or the ocean it warms the air, causing it to rise. The warm air cools as it rises, and the water in the air condenses and falls as rain.

Why is the climate so hot near the equator?

Because the sun’s rays hit the earth’s surface at a higher angle at the equator. Because the sun is always directly overhead at the equator.

What causes seasonal rainfall?

Rainfall in the wet season is mainly due to daytime heating, which leads to diurnal thunderstorm activity within a pre-existing moist airmass , so the rain mainly falls in late afternoon and early evening in savannah and monsoon regions.

Why is half of Africa desert?

The answer lies in the climate of the Arctic and northern high latitudes. However, around 5,500 years ago there was a sudden shift in climate in northern Africa leading to rapid acidification of the area. What was once a tropical, wet, and thriving environment suddenly turned into the desolate desert we see today.