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Learn about the causes and effects of updraft and downdraft, the upward- and downward-moving air currents in the atmosphere. Find out how they are related to thermal, mountain, and thunderstorm phenomena.
- The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica
Learn the meaning of downdraft as a noun, with synonyms, examples, and word history. Downdraft can refer to a downward current of gas or a decline in sense 1 an economic downdraft.
Downdraft is a downward-moving air current in the atmosphere, caused by cooling, condensation, or evaporation of cloud particles. Learn how downdrafts affect thunderstorms, wave clouds, and lee waves with Britannica.
Downdraft definition: a downward current, as of air. See examples of DOWNDRAFT used in a sentence.
Vertical drafts, known as updrafts or downdrafts, are localized regions of warm or cool air that move vertically. A mass of warm air will typically be less dense than the surrounding region, and so will rise until it reaches air that is either warmer or less dense than itself.
Thunderstorm downdrafts originate at altitudes where the air temperature is cooler than at ground level, and they are kept cool even as they sink to warmer levels by the evaporation of water and melting of ice particles.
In the same way, air that is cooler than its environment tends to sink as long as it can stay cooler than its surroundings. The upward moving air in a thunderstorm is known as the updraft, while downward moving air is the downdraft.
