Macroburst

Dry downbursts are associated with thunderstorms that exhibit very little rain, while wet downbursts are created by thunderstorms with significant amounts of precipitation. Microbursts and macrobursts are downbursts at very small and larger scales, respectively. A rare variety of dry downburst, the heat burst, is created by vertical currents on the backside of old outflow boundaries and squall lines where rainfall is lacking. Heat bursts generate significantly higher temperatures due to the lack of rain-cooled air in their formation and compressional heating during descent.