The Amazon is the world’s largest rainforest and its ecosystem promotes a dizzying array of diversity. The storms that produce the rain that feeds this region are multi-faceted and complex. This talk will present recent studies by the speaker and her group (mostly observational, from satellite and the GoAmazon2014/5 field campaign) that aim to dissect and understand this complexity with an end goal of better long-term predictions by climate models over the Amazon.

1.- Not all Amazon storms are created equal – they can be short, tall, skinny, wide, weak, intense – with implications for the rain and heating they create.

2.- Amazon storms occur at preferred times of the day – however, the timing depends on storm type (see #1) and location.

3.- The Amazon isn’t flat – land/ocean contrasts and topographic variations over the basin lead to day and night variations in low-level winds and moisture transport that affect Amazon storm propagation and evolution.

4.- Amazon storms change boundary layer properties – downdrafts can transport ozone and other free atmosphere constituents downward while multiple cold pool events have increasingly large impacts on boundary layer temperature and humidity.

5.- GCMs can actually capture some of this complexity – tune in to hear what they do best (and worst) in terms simulating Amazonian storm properties.