What ingredients are needed to produce thunderstorms?

There are three basic ingredients needed for thunderstorm development.

One factor is moisture. The moisture in the air is what the clouds, and eventually the rain, will develop from.

The second thing needed is an unstable atmosphere. For the atmosphere to be unstable there has to be relatively warm air located under cooler air. The warm air is less dense, and will rise through the cooler air. This releases heat and energy into the atmosphere.

The third necessary ingredient is a "trigger." A trigger can be a cold front, warm front, trough, upper level disturbance or even a lake breeze boundary.

When all these features are put together, the trigger forces the warmer air to rise through the unstable atmosphere. The rising moist air causes clouds to form and that could lead to a thunderstorm.