📍 Over the Great Plains (Kansas–Oklahoma, USA) during peak storm season. ✈️🌩️ It starts as a normal cloud line… then you look out the window and see a full vertical column punching upward like a white wall. This is a powerful cumulonimbus (thunderstorm) updraft seen from an airplane. Warm, humid air rises fast, condenses into a dense core, then spreads out at the top into an anvil when it hits the stable layer near the tropopause. When the updraft is extra strong, it can push higher and create