Short answers, pulled from the story.
A typical thunderstorm lifts approximately 500 million kilograms of water vapor into the Earth's atmosphere. This moisture begins as warm air rising rapidly from the ground and condenses into liquid drops to form cumulus clouds.
Every thunderstorm goes through developing, mature, and dissipation stages that take an average of 30 minutes each within a single cell storm. The mature stage features simultaneous updrafts and downdrafts where strong winds severe lightning and tornadoes may occur before the dissipation stage cuts off growth.
Kampala and Tororo in Uganda have been mentioned as the most thunderous places on Earth alongside claims for Singapore and Bogor on the Indonesian island of Java. Other cities known for frequent storm activity include Darwin Caracas Manila and Mumbai while the Midwest and Southern states produce some of the most powerful storms in the United States.
Cloud-to-ground lightning frequently occurs within phenomena of thunderstorms posing numerous hazards toward landscapes and populations including wildfires and direct fatalities. Hail causes serious damage notably to automobiles aircraft skylights glass-roofed structures livestock and farmers' crops when stones exceed one inch in diameter.
Radio pulses produced by cosmic rays help study how electric charges develop within thunderstorms while projects like VORTEX2 use sensors including Doppler on Wheels vehicles and unmanned aircraft to investigate expected severe weather. Lightning is detected remotely using sensors that detect cloud-to-ground lightning strokes with 95 percent accuracy in detection and within one kilometer of their point of origin.