[WATCH]: Dramatic Microburst Shows How Powerful Sudden Rain Can Be

A video of a dramatic weather phenomenon has gone viral online, showing the stunning microburst that seems to tear open the clouds above a lake in Austria. The video was a time-lapse of the footage recorded by a man named Peter Maier, according to BGR.

The wet microburst is an incredibly intense weather phenomenon. It is a column of rapidly descending air that carries a ton of water down with it. A microburst can cause damage that is the same as that of a tornado, although the microburst captured in the video occurred in a lake, so damages were minimized.

Microburst Tears Open the Clouds Caught in the Video

The weather is an ever-changing phenomenon that, at times it is unpredictable, although weather forecast can predict its general pattern. It can change in an instant leaving many caught in an unexpected rainstorm.

A viral video on social media sites like Twitter, shared for over 15,000 times, showed a particularly dramatic weather phenomenon called a microburst, showing how powerful a sudden burst of rain could be.

The video is a time-lapse of footage taken by Maier over the Lake Millstatt in Austria. The beginning of the video showed clouds that looked like it was tearing itself open and then progresses to the shore and lake with an incredible amount of water. Microbursts such as this is truly an incredible phenomenon but not rare. This type of cloud-dumping event is known as a wet microburst.

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What is Microburst?

According to National Weather Service, the development of a thunderstorm and water droplets or hailstones suspended within the updraft is the first step a microburst is created.

At times the updraft is so strong, suspending large amounts of droplets and hailstones in the upper part of the thunderstorm and then plummets to the ground because the updraft no longer can carry the weight of the large core of hail.

The microburst spreads to the ground in all directions and the first location that it first hits experiences the highest winds and greatest damage. Sometimes its damage can be life-threatening. There are two types of microbursts, namely the wet and dry microbursts, in which the wet microburst is accompanied by large precipitation.

Wet microbursts are a subtype of downbursts that descend from a thunderstorm and rapidly spreads out once it hits the ground. Dry microbursts can produce strong winds but little rains, although thunderstorms typically produce them. The time-lapse video shows a wet microburst with intense precipitation accompanied by strong winds as it flows rapidly to the ground.

Although the microburst seems far in the video, it can cause significant damages depending on its intensity and the area where it happened. The damage caused by its fast-moving winds is comparable to a tornado that can bend and tear down trees that cause structural change to homes, offices, and other buildings. In short, no one should be near a microburst when it is happening.

It is fortunate that the microburst did not harm the man and his camera who took the viral video, and that it did not cause any severe damage as it happened above a body of water.

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