If you had a closed environment in which you could simulate earth's atmospheric gradient, could you produce weather?

Would it be theoretically be possible to create clouds, thunderstorms, etc if you could somehow recreate the density gradient of earth's atmosphere in a closed system? Adding moisture, uneven ground heating, and rotation would you get a cloud layer that can reproduce the phenomenon of weather like precipitation, lightning, and tornadoes? Or are there other factors that would prevent this at such a smaller scale?