In the troposphere, inversions cause an increase in stability and tend to limit the upward growth of cloud, preventing further upward convection. Basically, up and down currents within clouds, which lead to their vertical development, are decided by humidity and temperature differences (between the cloud and the surroundings) - if the air temperature is equal or higher than the cloud's temperature, clouds will stop growing.

In simple words, a temperature inversion is a thin layer of the atmosphere where the normal decrease in temperature with height switches to the temperature increasing with height. It acts like a lid, keeping normal convective overturning of the atmosphere from penetrating through the inversion. Some of the effects it might have:

• An inversion might cause clouds just below the inversion to spread out and take on a flattened appearance.
• Still another effect is to prevent thunderstorms from forming. Even in an air mass that is hot and humid in the lowest layers, thunderstorms will be prevented if an inversion in the lower atmosphere is keeping this air from rising. The conceptual opposite of a temperature inversion is an unstable air layer.