Cumulonimbus and aviation at this altitude, updraughts with speeds that can exceed . Such an updraught speed corresponds to the wind speed of a small hurricane. The speed can even exceed . The maximum number in the Beaufort scale is 12 ("hurricane force" wind) and is assigned to wind speeds of 64 knots or greater. If the Beaufort scale were extended, these updraughts would have a Beaufort number of 14 "in the vertical direction". The turbulence is then "extreme" at this altitude. Moreover, the diameters of the updraught columns vary between 2 km (air mass thunderstorm) and 10 km (supercell thunderstorm). The height
Winter storm naming in the United Kingdom and Ireland predicted large-scale, cyclonic windstorms with potential for significant land-based wind impacts. This may result in names being allocated to events that are below the traditional Beaufort scale definition of a storm. A storm will be named when it is deemed able to have a "substantial" impact on the UK or Ireland. Met Éireann names any storm which triggers a status Orange or Red weather warning focusing on wind, though consideration was also given to rain and snow events in 2016–17. The basis for such as outlined on their weather warning service are mean wind speeds in excess of 40 mph