Electric Weather

Historic planetary instability and catastrophe. Evidence for electrical scarring on planets and moons. Electrical events in today's solar system. Electric Earth.

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Dotini
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Re: Electric Weather

Unread post by Dotini » Wed May 11, 2011 6:37 pm

For those of us like intense electrical activity, something very exiting is happening here! Watch this video from today's strange "weather" in Ft Worth, Texas, and tell me that your socks aren't rolling up and down!
http://www.nbcdfw.com/news/local/Lightn ... 48069.html

kiwi
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Re: Electric Weather

Unread post by kiwi » Sat May 14, 2011 4:27 pm


kiwi
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Re: Electric Weather

Unread post by kiwi » Sat May 14, 2011 4:29 pm

actually ... do these systems form only during the day time?

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CharlesChandler
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Re: Electric Weather

Unread post by CharlesChandler » Mon May 23, 2011 3:49 am

Dotini wrote:Watch this video from today's strange "weather" in Ft Worth, Texas, and tell me that your socks aren't rolling up and down!
This is the best video I've seen of this phenomenon -- thanks for posting this! These are called corona discharges, which occur when the electrostatic potential exceeds 100 kV/m.

Normally, a corona discharge in the air would produce violet light, and would be called St. Elmo's fire. As this phenomenon is most common at the end of a thunderstorm, sailors named it after their patron saint, believing that St. Elmo had once again delivered them from the perils of a storm at sea. There are a few violet-colored discharges, but St. Elmo's fire is generally a sustained discharge, and the "fingers" are rarely more than a couple of meters long. So this is something different.

The key to understanding this is the color. Violet means an electron avalanche passing through neutrally-charged air, where the arriving and departing electrons simply disturb existing electrons in the outermost shell, producing higher-frequency photons. The other colors, lower in frequency, indicate that the air was ionized, and the atoms were accepting and relinquishing electrons in full orbit (not just p-state changes). The most prevalent color is blue, which is ionized nitrogen or oxygen. Also visible is a blue-green color, which is ionized water molecules. The orange-red discharges are from ionized oxygen.

Meteorologists always say that this phenomenon is just the sky getting lit up by transformers blowing up. But that doesn't explain why they kept blowing up, nor why transformers all up and down the line kept blowing up (you'd think that once the line failed, the whole circuit would go dead, or the sub-station relay would have kicked out), nor why the city lights kept shining as the neighborhood transformers got knocked out. It also does not explain why some of the discharges are slightly directional and/or filamentary. These, in fact, are discharges between the ground and the air, and while power line towers are likely discharge points, they don't necessarily affect the power lines, and the sub-station doesn't sense the discharges, so it's not going to open the circuit. If the power goes out, it's because of a structural failure in the tower that was carrying the lines.

For more photos of similar events, see the Blue & Orange Flashes section of my paper on tornadic supercell thunderstorms. My personal favorite is the last image (and the associated video), where lamp-posts "caught fire" and burned an orange-red color just after a tornado passed by.

Chattanooga, TN, 2010-10-28

Interestingly, the street lights kept shining, and never failed, even though they were "on fire" for tens of seconds. I didn't think that there was anything flammable in a lamp-post... :)
Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and he'll spend the rest of the day sitting in a small boat, drinking beer and telling dirty jokes.

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The Electromagnetic Nature of Tornadic Supercell Thunderstorms

Lloyd
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Re: Electric Weather

Unread post by Lloyd » Mon May 23, 2011 2:23 pm

* Charles, your user profile says you're in Baltimore, MD. Did you notice that the NPA is having its annual conference there this year and that Electric Universe speakers will dominate the conference? It'll be held at a university there from July 6 to 9, I believe. Are you going to attend? I think it's cheap.
* Also, what's your view on aether theory? And have you read this thread http://thunderbolts.info/wp/forum/phpBB3/v ... =10&t=4592 on Brant's Aether Battery Iron Sun theory? If you have time to go there and comment, that'd be nice.
* He says the Sun is iron and acts as an antenna for aether, which it converts to electrons, which power the Sun's electrical effects. Maybe Earth is a smaller aether antenna which makes the electrical effects seen on Earth, including tornadoes. Does that sound plausible?

mharratsc
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Re: Electric Weather

Unread post by mharratsc » Wed May 25, 2011 1:57 pm

On a different note- any of the North American folks been looking at the recent national radar scans?

I fully well am convinced that our weather patterns down low follow the jet stream, which in turn interfaces with the 'Van Allen Belts' in some fashion. :?

Anyone noticing that - especially since the weather started getting really extreme since the advent of Solar Cycle 24 - that you can see the cyclonic rotation of weather patterns moving across North America (vs. the traditional fronts moving along evenly)?

Even the clouds look like a whorl in a diacotron instability. I am thinking a greater rate of electron/negative ion scavenging and charge equalization. We've had several large tornados (one that was absolutely devastating to a small Missouri town :( ), and even a record number of tornados in one year... and the year isn't even over yet. :\
Mike H.

"I have no fear to shout out my ignorance and let the Wise correct me, for every instance of such narrows the gulf between them and me." -- Michael A. Harrington

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StefanR
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Re: Electric Weather

Unread post by StefanR » Wed May 25, 2011 3:37 pm

junglelord wrote:Why does not the (fair-weather) atmospheric electric field cause a shock of 200 V to a standing human? Because the human is grounded in practice; the poorly conducting air cannot charge up a grounded object. Below a thundercloud, where the ground-level electric field may be tens of kV/m, the situation is different - but then the threat comes from a lightning strike. It should be noted that the notion "dirt increases electric conductivity" is valid for surfaces, for example insulators, but the matter is contrary for air: dirty (dusty) air has poorer conductivity. However, if the "dirt" is a radioactive pollutant, the higher ionization increases the electric conductivity. Such an episode happened in May 1986, when an iodine cloud from the Chernobyl emission arrived at southern Finland: the electric conductivity grew tenfold, but returned to a lower level in a few days, because the half-life of radioactive iodine is 8 days.
http://www.thunderbolts.info/wp/forum/phpB ... 7566#p7566

ALthough this probably wont stand in relation to the Fort Worth incident, I wish to bring up this quote as it did made me wonder a bit the past few days. Now not knowing exactly what the status is of Fukushima, but I do know stuff is still getting in the air from there and it isn't only iodine but also other elements with longer half-lives.
My foggyness is about how much of an effect could come from this, concerning "downwind" North-America, upon the electric conductivity ? :?
The illusion from which we are seeking to extricate ourselves is not that constituted by the realm of space and time, but that which comes from failing to know that realm from the standpoint of a higher vision. -L.H.

Dotini
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Re: Electric Weather

Unread post by Dotini » Mon May 30, 2011 9:46 am

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-13580748

Notice the funny light globes accompanying this truck-destroying tornado? Isn't this further evidence that UFO-like objects must be natural manifestations such as St. Elmo's fire and coronal discharges?

Respectfully submitted,
Dotini

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Re: Electric Weather

Unread post by jamesonthego » Thu Jun 16, 2011 5:42 pm

Just a side bar about electric weather effects. I was wondering if the recent spate of tornados in the central USA are traceable to solar spotting or flaring activity. I was struck by several reports about damage to vehicles that had been pulled from the ground by tornados. In one case a large truck had been twisted into a loose spiral shape. Everyone marveled at the incredible force of the spiraling winds. What I saw was a double layer traced around a magnetic and electrically conductive material. :idea:

mharratsc
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Re: Electric Weather

Unread post by mharratsc » Tue Jun 21, 2011 1:51 pm

So today, 6/21/2011, we saw yet another great spiralling storm system spinning over North America. It generated quite a few tornado warnings as well.

I was wondering if anyone had had the great luck of finding any data yet that supports these big spiralling storm systems as touchdown points for Birkland currents, or have any explanations for the increase in this behavior during this past year?
Mike H.

"I have no fear to shout out my ignorance and let the Wise correct me, for every instance of such narrows the gulf between them and me." -- Michael A. Harrington

Dotini
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Re: Electric Weather

Unread post by Dotini » Tue Jun 21, 2011 3:22 pm

mharratsc wrote:I was wondering if anyone had had the great luck of finding any data yet that supports these big spiralling storm systems as touchdown points for Birkland currents, or have any explanations for the increase in this behavior during this past year?
Hi, Mike,
I too suspect an unrecognized electrical component to severe organized traveling thunderstorms (supercells?) and subsequent tornadoes. I've begun my research by reading the excellent book "All About Lightning" by the well experienced lightning researcher Martin Uman, Princeton Ph.D., professor of Electrical Engineering at the University of Arizona and University of Florida (in addition to numerous other prestigious postings, books and honors). I include his abbreviated description of severe storm formation below. But this is only a beginning. I need to read more about traveling thunderstorms, possibly "The Thunderstorm" by LJ Battan, and closely review Dr Gerald Pollack's masterly video on "Water, Life and Energy" before I could even begin to venture an opinion. Additionally, NASA's THEMIS mission has made revolutionary findings regarding hot energetic solar plasma, well-organized into ropes, cylinders or spheres before reaching the ground of earth (every 7 or 8 minutes!), which may well fit into this developing picture. Working together in an interdisciplinary approach, I think we can solve this.

"Typically, lines of severe thunderstorms are formed near the boundary of a moving cold front and stationary warm moist air. The cold front, a large mass of cold air, pushes beneath the warm moist air and forces it to rise. The rising air creates thunderstorms along the front. For the forming thunderstorms to become severe, the meteorological conditions must usually differ somewhat from those during the formation of local thunderstorms. Prior to the formation of severe thunderstorms, there is often a warm, dry layer of air aloft (and a region in which temperature increases with height) which tends to hold down the warm moist air near the earth's surface. The air near the ground becomes progressively warmer and more humid. When the cold front causes the warm air to rise, the ability of the dry air to to hold down the wet is destroyed and thunderclouds are violently formed....Some severe storms are composed of many individual cells, and some are not....One of the the primary characteristics of the organized storms is that they can propagate themselves...Common to most ideas of how this is done is cold air brought to the ground by downdrafts through a given thundercloud spreads outwards and forces warm moist air adjacent to that thundercloud upward generating a new thundercloud...For severe thunderstorms to propagate effectively over long distances it is usually necessary for winds aloft to be relatively strong and increase with height." --Martin Uman

Respectfully submitted,
Dotini

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CharlesChandler
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Re: Electric Weather

Unread post by CharlesChandler » Tue Jun 21, 2011 6:15 pm

Dotini wrote:Working together in an interdisciplinary approach, I think we can solve this.
That's exactly what I was thinking. :) But don't start over from the beginning. Start here, and then go the next step (whatever that might be). Otherwise, we wouldn't be working together. :)

http://charles-chandler.org/Geophysics/Tornadoes.php

Therein you'll find the most comprehensive, accurate treatment of the electromagnetic properties of tornadic supercell thunderstorms available anywhere. It iterates through a long list of distinctive characteristics of these storms, presents the relevant theories (mainstream and otherwise), and demonstrates how the inclusion of electromagnetism in the theoretical framework affords a much more accurate understanding. With 150 images and over 200 references, it should save you a lot of time if you want to get into this.

As concerns space weather and tornadoes, I recently found a correlation between sunspot cycles and tornado fatalities.

http://charles-chandler.org/Geophysics/ ... nadoes.png

The exact nature of the relationship has not been determined. My personal feeling is that space weather is the smaller of the factors in severe weather, but over long periods, a small factor can show up as a statistical increase. It's like the way there's a statistical increase in rainy days on the weekends. This is because during the week, people produce more smog, and this creates the nuclei of condensation necessary for precipitation from clouds. The effect peaks during the Friday evening rush hour, so the chance of rain is greatest then and thereafter. Not enough to make it rain on any particular day, and the combination of heat and humidity are the far bigger factors. But over a long period of time, you'll see a statistical increase, even from a small factor.
Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and he'll spend the rest of the day sitting in a small boat, drinking beer and telling dirty jokes.

Volcanoes
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The Electromagnetic Nature of Tornadic Supercell Thunderstorms

jjohnson
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Re: Electric Weather

Unread post by jjohnson » Tue Jun 21, 2011 9:57 pm

Hi, Charles,

It's very good to see you writing here (up on Planetary Science) where weather (WX we called when I was a USAF pilot) is definitely a planetary electric phenomenon. Thanks for the link to your paper.

On the subject of the red glow at the Fort Worth transformer substations, I had assumed it was just an incandescent melted iron afterglow fading into the IR, but I like your ionized oxygen line better. Either that or the substation was getting pounded by red and blue sprites!

Jim

Dotini
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Re: Electric Weather

Unread post by Dotini » Fri Jun 24, 2011 7:47 am

CharlesChandler wrote:...don't start over from the beginning. Start here, and then go the next step (whatever that might be).
Hi Charles,
Thank you very much for your helpful posts (here and in PF) and even more so for your magnum opus paper on supercells and tornadoes. I've read it all the way through once and I need to do it again, reabsorbing all the facts and lessons. It would be ever so impressive to see it published by a university or other institution such that it would be acceptable to link to in rigorously moderated forums such as PF.

Recently I've begun studying some of Dollard's papers, and am starting to acquire a small library of Thompson, Steinmetz and Tesla. Someday I hope to understand electricity enough to carry on a decent conversation.

I attach an amusing video of what appears to be ball lightning phenomena. Note that they emerge after an internal discharge in the central region of a rather nicely formed thundercloud.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jnyf6ndZkqQ&NR=1

Highest regards,
Steve

MosaicDave
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Re: Electric Weather

Unread post by MosaicDave » Fri Jun 24, 2011 10:28 am

Dotini wrote:I attach an amusing video of what appears to be ball lightning phenomena. Note that they emerge after an internal discharge in the central region of a rather nicely formed thundercloud.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jnyf6ndZkqQ&NR=1
In the comments section of that video, there's a link to this other interesting video,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UOAX6kttBIw
which suggests that the amusing video is false. It would be fun to actually inspect the frames of the amusing video as supposedly done in the second video, but I don't think I have an easy fast way of doing that...

--dc

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