According to the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), extreme weather is defined as any weather phenomenon that has the possibility of causing disturbance, destruction or damage to both the environment and mankind. There are different types of extreme weather event, these are, rainstorm, wildfire, hail, thunderstorm, downbursts, lightning, tornadoes, waterspouts, tropical cyclones, extratropical cyclones, and flood. Among all these events, tornadoes, flood, hurricanes, and thunderstorm are the most dangerous and destructive which can claim a lot of human lives and even cause loss of property. These weather phenomena are associated with cumulonimbus clouds, their formation and development varies under different condition and geographic locations. The study of the formation and development of these weather-related phenomena are very useful for predicting the occurrence of such events and this information will be of help in saving lives of people in the prone areas.

I can remember one occasion when I had to visit a friend in a town in the north of the country. It was in the middle of winter and I had to drive through the mountains to get to where I needed to go. There had been a little snow during the week where I lived, but I didn't really think about the cold weather much before I set of on the trip that cold winter morning.

I started off early in the morning because I wanted to drive on the roads while they were quiet and free of traffic as much as possible so as to not lose time. My destination was about three and a half hours away and I allowed a little time for a stop to relax and stretch my legs along the way.

The first part of the journey was fine, without any problems. However, as I got further and further north and closer to my destination the cold weather became worse. It started to snow and I became a little concerned that the ice and steep slopes might become too dangerous to continue. After a while though I realized that it would be ok, although I had to drive slower than normally just to be safe.

Finally, I arrived at my friend’s location just before the scheduled time for the meeting and was happy that there had been no problems during the journey. I met my friend and after about an hour and a half I had finished what I had to do there. I decided to eat something before starting back on the journey home. I drove a little way to a restaurant I had seen when I arrived and had some lunch.

Once I started to drive home everything seemed okay like before. It was still snowing a little but it was still possible to drive without too much trouble. Suddenly the cold weather began to get much worse though and the snowfall was much heavier than earlier in the day. I continued driving, but was becoming worried about what to do if the conditions worsened. By this time I was driving through the mountains, well away from the city and there were almost no cars on the road at all.

What happened next took me totally by surprise. I was driving round a bend and the rear of my car began to slide out ... I tried to control it but the car started to slide out of control and drifted across the road and into a field which was next to the road.

The snow was very deep there and I couldn't simply drive the car out of it. Fortunately there was no great impact, and I didn't suffer any injuries. I sat there for a few minutes and thought about what to do. There were no other cars or traffic passing by which I could stop and ask for help.

Then I had an idea. I called my friend whom I had just visited on my mobile phone and explained to him what had happened. He wasn't surprised and told me the same thing had happened to him last year in the winter. He told me to stay in the car and he would send someone to help me.

About an hour later a tow truck arrived and the guy hooked the cable onto the back of my car and hauled it out of the field and back onto the road. He had a quick look underneath the car to make sure there was no visible damage to anything and then warned me to stay there until the snow died down a bit.

I was relieved that I had a thick winter coat with me! About forty five minutes later, the snow stopped and soon after that I saw some more cars driving past, very slowly, and decided it was time to continue the drive home. I had to drive very slowly for about an hour until I reached lower ground away from the mountains, and then the road was almost clear of snow and I could eventually drive normally again.

This extreme weather experience was a bit scary and in the end it took me a lot longer to get home than I had planned! Thankfully my parents car wasn't damaged, I had it checked over when I got home, because I'm sure the incident could have been much worse if I had been trying to drive faster in such bad weather.