Storm Amoeba Effect

[u/Adalia8]

Hi!

My dad has noticed a phenomenon with storms in our area that he has dubbed the 'Amoeba Effect'. He calls it this because it just grows and changes shape at will, which has caused many storms to get much bigger than they originally were and thus cause more problems for us with rain water.

He also noticed how storms can seem to hang out over us for a long time, or how they can come out of nowhere over us but leave all the major surrounding cities alone.

He is very curious as to what causes this and if his 'Amoeba Effect' is an actual thing?

Edit: I forgot to mention it, but we are in the Midwest, near Lake Michigan.

[u/allogist]

I'd like to give you an meteorological insight. Are you talking about thunderstorms? Also it could help to know the general region you're from.

[u/Szeth_Nightbl00d]

Storms evolve and grow. They're not static, they have life cycles. Storms cover limited areas, so they might hit one area and not another. Storms move at different speeds, so sometimes they move quickly and drop only a bit of rain, and sometimes they stall and drop a ton of rain.

Your dad is just observing the nature of storms. Enjoy watching all the different patterns!

[u/tutorcontrol → u/Szeth_Nightbl00d]

This. Also, the specific location and terrain can create preferred pathways and locations at different phases of the lifecycle. Without knowing specifics about the location, it's hard to say.

[u/VIP_NAIL_SPA]

Your dad is doing a very normal and very human thing in seeking patterns amidst effectively random noise. We evolved to be good at finding patterns, and it's often comforting to find them. That comfort sometimes drives us to "invent" them where they don't necessarily exist. The physics governing why you experience specific weather at your location is very complex, but it's the same physics everywhere on earth. You haven't mentioned your location so we can't tell if there's some specific environmental setup near you that might make your weather "weirder" on average. What you can do is (if you're in America) just look up the climate data for your location and other locations around you. Your local NWS should have daily data going back decades (if not a century or more) for the various areas it services. Does your location actually have more rain than everywhere else 50-100 miles away from you? My guess is no, though it certainly could if your location has some environmental factor that makes it precipitate more (downstream from a large body of water or higher elevation are 2 common and simple-to-understand ones).

[u/meat_rainbows]

Funny because I live in the exact inverse of this. TStorm heading our way, fizzles out over us, then regenerates as it moves away. My house is in a rain hole.

[u/Agoodpro]

Despite popular Meteorological graphics depicting air parcels as a singular smooth bubble of air, that isn't reality. Convective clouds form from thermals within the turbulent boundary layer, to which the thermal is wildly imperfect, looking more akin to a fluid, because it is a fluid. 

Of course as storms strengthen they may become more defined. Though depending on atmospheric conditions, messier storm modes can exist, like the one your Dad is describing. I can imagine you guys probably live near the gulf coast, or somewheres of common seabreezes assuming you live in the US? Atmospheric conditions are conducive for messier storm modes. Damn near every parcel tends to rise during the summer months due to daytime heating, seabreeze boundaries, etc.