Hector (cloud) is known for its consistency and intensity. Lightning rates and updraft speeds are notable aspects of this thunderstorm and during the 1990s National Geographic Magazine published a comprehensive study of the storm with pictures of damaged trees and details of updraft speeds and references to tornadic events. Since the late 1980s the thunderstorm has been the subject of many meteorological studies, many centred on Hector itself but also utilising the consistency of the storm cell to study other aspects of thunderstorms and lightning. Hector (cloud) Hector is the name given to a cumulonimbus, or thundercloud, that forms regularly nearly every
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