WHAT YOU NEED: 

• water
• a bucket or large container to hold the water then dump it out

WHAT YOU DO: 

You'll want to explain what's happening first because this is a quick activity. All you need to do is dump the water out on a hard surface and watch how it spreads out quickly in all directions. 

WHAT IS HAPPENING: 

The strongest wind inside a thunderstorm can act the same way the water does. Thunderstorms suck in warm air to keep them growing and spit out cold air. Cold air is more dense so it sinks, and in a strong thunderstorm is rushes down instead of calmly sinking. This is called a downburst because the wind inside the storm is moving down quickly. When we see severe wind damage after thunderstorms that wasn't caused by a tornado, these strong downbursts can often be to blame. When they cause a large area of damage, we call them "macrobursts" (think the size of a small neighborhood) and when they cause a small area of damage (think one or two homes), we call them "microbursts."

DISCUSSION IDEAS:

• When we dump the water out, what do you think it will do? Where will it go? 
• Have you seen this happen after a storm before?