It’s good to think of air as “flowing” much like the water in a river. One of the most important air flows to think about is how the air is moving vertically. This is called atmospheric lift, and it drives all weather activity.

When air is lifted, we get clouds, thunderstorms, and precipitation. But air doesn’t lift itself, and we’ll get into that in the coming pages.

The process of lift is what creates weather, and there are a variety of ways lift happens and presents itself in the atmosphere.

4 Processes That Drive Lift

Remember, the term “lift” just refers to rising air, and it’s the...