SEEDER/FEEDER MECHANISM

When very moist (e.g. tropical maritime) air flow is forced to rise over upland areas, thick layers of stratus or stratocumulus cloud form. As noted elsewhere, these 'orographic' clouds of themselves produce relatively little rainfall (in a thermally stable environment). If however rain is already occurring from medium layer cloud (thick altostratus, nimbostratus) [seeder clouds], it will have to fall through the low-level [feeder] cloud, with collision/collection processes markedly enhancing the net rainfall rate at the surface. This effect often produces prolonged heavy rainfall in the warm conveyor regime within a warm sector, particularly if the system is slow-moving.