That collision between
very warm,
humid air at low levels of the
atmosphere and cool air at higher levels creates the upward vertical winds within a thunderstorm that sometimes turn into a tornado, said Thomas Schwein, deputy director of the National Weather Service's Central Region, which includes Missouri.
While Earth's lower
atmosphere is about one percent water vapor (although it seems much higher in the
humid Louisiana summers), the upper
atmosphere, where ultraviolet radiation can penetrate, is
very dry: a cold trap, a combination of pressure and temperature, prevents water vapor from rising high in the earth's
atmosphere.