Hector (cloud) Hector (cloud) Hector is the name given to a cumulonimbus, or thundercloud, that forms regularly nearly every afternoon on the Tiwi Islands in the Northern Territory of Australia, from approximately September to March each year. Hector, or sometimes "Hector the Convector", is known as one of the world's most consistently large thunderstorms, reaching heights of approximately . Named by pilots during the Second World War, the recurring position of the thunderstorm made it a navigational beacon for pilots and mariners in the region. Hector is caused primarily by a collision of several sea breeze boundaries across the Tiwi Islands and
Mushroom cloud stabilization altitude. Significantly smaller fireballs produce clouds with buoyancy-governed ascent. After reaching the tropopause, the bottom of the region of strong static stability, the cloud tends to slow its ascent and spread out. If it contains sufficient energy, the central part of it may continue rising up into the stratosphere as an analog of a standard thunderstorm. A mass of air ascending from the troposphere to the stratosphere leads to the formation of acoustic gravity waves, virtually identical to those created by intense stratosphere-penetrating thunderstorms. Smaller-scale explosions penetrating the tropopause generate waves of higher frequency, classified as infrasound. The explosion