Here are some thunderstorm pictures. You can make any of these into your computer desktop wallpaper. Just click on an image to enlarge it, and then right-click and choose “Set as Desktop Background”.
Here’s a photo of thunderstorms above the Gulf Coast near Galveston Bay. These thunderstorms build in the morning out over the ocean and then move inland as the day warms up. This photo was taken from the space shuttle during mission STS-40.
This is a photo of some severe thunderstorms that formed in May, 2003. There were several very large tornadoes generated during this period that struck the midwest. This picture was taken by the space shuttle.
This is a world wide map of lightning. This shows the places in the world where lightning is mostly likely to happen. This is the total lightning accumulation over the course of a year.
Here’s an image of the Himalaya mountains seen from the space shuttle. You can see huge monsoon thunderstorms above Bangladesh and India. This is some of the regions that receive the most rainfall in the entire world.
This is a satellite photo of a severe storm that struck the Red Sea in 2006. It was so severe that it caused an Egyptian ferry to sink, carrying 1,300 people.
We have written many articles about storms for Universe Today. Here’s an article about dust storms on Mars, and here’s an article about storms on Saturn.
If you’d like more info on Earth, check out NASA’s Solar System Exploration Guide on Earth. And here’s a link to NASA’s Earth Observatory.
We’ve also recorded an episode of Astronomy Cast all about planet Earth. Listen here, Episode 51: Earth.