Earth - Tornadoes, Hurricanes, Typhoons....

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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Shelgeyr
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Re: Birth Of A Tornado

Unread post by Shelgeyr » Mon May 20, 2013 7:38 am

shadowmane wrote:So what's the explanation for tornados at night?
Although I am "very EU"-oriented, I'd like to see this question addressed soundly as well.

My guess - and that's all this is, a GUESS - is that most night-time tornadoes start around dusk, and since (again, I'm guessing) what is important here is a change in electical field as opposed to an increase, perhaps the decreasing field from day to night is just as capable as contributing to a charged sheath vortex spinning up as anything else.

Then again, for those truly full-on-nighttime tornadoes, they're certainly as associated with thunderstorms (same as all the others), and thunderstorms are still part of the connective path between ground and sky, so I guess it may not matter all that much when they happen, day or night.

For the final time, let me stipulate (even though it should be obvious) that I'm speculating here, and my opinions should not be mistaken for scientific fact.

The reason I'm pounding that particular drum so hard is that my #1 bull-moose gold-medal problem with most scientific articles - including the vast majority of things found on sites like phys.org - is all the wild, foundationless speculation written up in a factual manner (not even qualified!) as if announcing a "new discovery", or worse - serves as an unquestioned factual "given"; the foundation upon which yet more speculation is built.

I don't want to add to that...
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promethean
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Re: Birth Of A Tornado

Unread post by promethean » Mon May 20, 2013 9:26 am

http://www.usatoday.com/story/weather/2 ... t/2325875/

and from last week...

http://www.thesuntoday.org/current-obse ... d-spitzer/

Why tornadic activity at 30 degrees latitude ( plus or minus ) ?
Reminds me of Miles Mathis' charge field of the Earth...
"History teaches everything,even the future." Alphonse de Lamartine (1790-1869)

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GaryN
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Re: Birth Of A Tornado

Unread post by GaryN » Mon May 20, 2013 7:28 pm

That is a very tragic event promethean, but surely this is not coincidence. A strong, direct CME hit, and then this?
In order to change an existing paradigm you do not struggle to try and change the problematic model. You create a new model and make the old one obsolete. -Buckminster Fuller

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Re: Birth Of A Tornado

Unread post by Maol » Tue May 21, 2013 12:03 am

GaryN wrote:That is a very tragic event promethean, but surely this is not coincidence. A strong, direct CME hit, and then this?
Two CMEs hit, one on the 18th and one on the 19th.

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GaryN
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Re: Birth Of A Tornado

Unread post by GaryN » Tue May 21, 2013 11:58 am

The mainstream seems to strongly deny any connection between flares or CMEs with tornados or other extreme weather events, but this chap says he has 3 terrabytes of data that show otherwise. I havent found any data on Geomagnetically Induced Currents for the area, but see there was a spike measured in Sotland on the 18th, the day the first CME hit, and maybe a small spike on the 19/20th. The article here is talking about a 2012 event.

CORONAL MASS EJECTION (CME) CAUSES TORNADO OUTBREAK

http://ruffletheteacher.com/2012/01/22/ ... -outbreak/
In order to change an existing paradigm you do not struggle to try and change the problematic model. You create a new model and make the old one obsolete. -Buckminster Fuller

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Re: Birth Of A Tornado

Unread post by dahlenaz » Tue May 21, 2013 10:04 pm

We should also note that the CME's were of such intensity to cause auroral displays as far south as
Colorado, according to space weather.com but there is another pattern that deserves attention.

As a side line to an investigation into patterns of severe weather coincident to orbital orientations of near
neighborhood bodies and occurance of hurricanes, the moon showed an extension of a pattern of influence
which fell in time with a large number of storng tornados, during the moon's stationing from just after
new moon to just before full moon.

I didnn't chart the tornados in the same way as i did hurricanes but the moons influence on the earth's
atmosphere seemed to present a pattern that appeared to involve surrounding bodies such as Venus and
Mars,, but for this tornado outbreak the only bodies in the vacinity was the moon and that big asteroid
which is coming in for a close approach later this month. On the 20th it was drawing closer to the
moon/earth system < .0816AU .. And then there is this point to spark my curiosity,,,, the asteroid
is moving near to an imaginary plane of influence between Saturn, and the moon and the earth.
It makes me wonder if we live in a hypersensitive solar system and the earth is have having
capture-cravings... d...z

http://ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/sbdb.cgi?sstr=1998%20QE2&orb=1

Image
...

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CharlesChandler
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Re: Birth Of A Tornado

Unread post by CharlesChandler » Sun May 26, 2013 10:31 pm

In my study of tornadoes, I found a loose relationship between sunspot activity and the severity of tornadoes. It shows up best in the comparison between tornado fatalities and the sunspot cycle.

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

The reason why I thought to compare fatalities to the sunspot cycle is that I figured that the statistics would be far more reliable. (A fatality is always reported, but the tornadoes themselves are less consistently reported.)

I don't think that ion beams from CMEs are making it all of the way through the atmosphere, to influence tropospheric airflows, as suggested in previous posts. But an ion beam will increase the degree of ionization in the upper atmosphere, thus strengthening the fair weather field. And I subscribe to the theory that the fair weather field polarizes solid water particles (e.g., hail), resulting in electron transfer on particle collision, which is the fundamental electrification process in the thunderstorm. I'm also of the opinion that tornadoes are electromagnetic, and thus rely on the degree of electrification.

Local factors are much more significant in determining whether or not a thunderstorm will form. For instance, if the humidity just isn't there, no storm forms, no matter the EM environment. But if a storm does form, and the fair weather field is stronger than normal, the storm electrification will be more robust, meaning more lightning, and a greater chance of a tornado.
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The Electromagnetic Nature of Tornadic Supercell Thunderstorms

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Re: Birth Of A Tornado

Unread post by ElecGeekMom » Tue May 28, 2013 12:10 pm

I fear this may be a bit OT, but since we're talking about tornadoes and things that influence their formation... here goes:

Many readers may be aware that Moore sustained massive damage from another F5 tornado on May 3, 1999. There have been other Moore tornadoes that were also massive and caused widespread damage. Therefore, many are asking why Moore gets hit with so many big twisters. This video shows a 3D image of the Moore tornado from May 20, 2013:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b9S00VYxwBI

I am fascinated by the stair-step appearance of this storm. The live video of it
also displayed an upside down stair-step pyramid appearance.

The shape of the storm, and the direction the stair-steps take makes me think there is something coming from the right (east) that is influencing it. There is a major NWS radar to the right, outside the border of the image. It's
called Twin Lakes and is a WSR-88D. It's pretty much straight east of Moore. I keep wondering if these high-powered radars we have now might be adding to the energy of storms, and might be one reason that Moore keeps getting hit in recent years. The earliest NWS radar was installed there in 1966.

Is it possible that the massive NWS radar east of Moore has an influence on the shape of storms that form to the west, at the edge of the OKC metropolitan area?

Another oddity I must mention is that AFAIK the actual NWS headquarters hasn't ever been hit with a massive tornado. So is it possible that the big NWS radar is in some way protective of that location, but possibly "bending" the power of storms around it, into neighboring areas?

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Re: Birth Of A Tornado

Unread post by CharlesChandler » Tue May 28, 2013 7:20 pm

ElecGeekMom wrote:I am fascinated by the stair-step appearance of this storm.
The stair-stepping is an artifact of how the 3D model was built, using a series of individual scans at various elevations. WSR-88 only produces slices of the storm. The software (i.e., GRLevelX) builds a 3D model by connecting similar features in adjacent 2D scans. So the detailed ridges are the elevations of the actual scans, while the smooth shapes in between were interpolated by the software. It's an imperfect process, but for the first time, we get to see what the storms actually look like in 3D, which tells us a lot. I'm wondering what the MPAR ("Multi-function Phased Array Radar") scans would look like. Instead of one complete scan every 5 minutes, MPAR can be programmed to just focus on one thing, taking many more slices, and finishing faster. The apparent storm structure changes dramatically in 5 minutes, because it's picking up precipitation density that is very transient, leaving us wondering what happened to the features in the last scan, and where the new features in the present scan came from. MPAR shows a much smoother transition. For example, compare the composites for the Shawnee tornado, by WSR-88D and MPAR. But I want to see it in 3D. ;)
ElecGeekMom wrote:I keep wondering if these high-powered radars we have now might be adding to the energy of storms, and might be one reason that Moore keeps getting hit in recent years.
Theoretically, a powerful enough radar could photo-ionize the cloud, increasing the degree of electrification. Radars are certainly hazardous for human beings up-close, for that very reason (i.e., genetic damage due to photo-ionization), so anybody planning to have children someday is advised not to stand next to a radar emitter. ;) But at a distance, I'm not sure if the EM waves are strong enough to ionize anything.

Still, when an area like Moore gets hit repeatedly, there just has to be something to that. Some people think that varying conductivities and capacitances in the oil fields are a factor.
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The Electromagnetic Nature of Tornadic Supercell Thunderstorms

promethean
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Re: Birth Of A Tornado

Unread post by promethean » Tue May 28, 2013 7:42 pm

Another thought...the weather people predict more outbreaks this week,
as they did two weeks ago ( before the CME's ) , based on the jet stream's location...
is the jet stream affected by the solar activity we are witnessing ?
The mainstream explanation of the jet stream blames temperature differentials
of adjacent air masses , but couldn't this be a case of the cart before the horse...
I will invoke Miles Mathis' theory of planetary "charge recycling" again ,
Thanks EGM ,for that youtube link and your observation re:NWS radar...
more food for thought.
"History teaches everything,even the future." Alphonse de Lamartine (1790-1869)

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Re: Birth Of A Tornado

Unread post by ElecGeekMom » Tue May 28, 2013 9:33 pm

Thanks, Charles and Promethean, for your replies.

I watched the TV coverage in real time during this last outbreak. I was struck by the stair-step appearance of the big Moore tornado as it was photographed by storm chasers. I would say that the rain shroud and/or debris cloud had taken on the stair-step appearance. It was something I don't recall ever having seen before. There weren't as many steps in the storm chasers' footage as there were in the 3D radar sequence, but it was there.

I am a 4th generation Okie and am closer to 60 than to 50. I have been intrigued by tornadoes ever since the first time my family took shelter in response to the police cars racing down our neighborhood streets, with their sirens wailing the warning. That was all we had - just a few minutes' warning. These days, they give us maybe 2-3 days' warning. Things have come a long way, but they have to strike a balance between making sure people get the message versus causing a panic over an event that may well not even take place. It's gotten to the point where, if the weathercasters don't frame their message in dire terms (e.g., "Get underground!"), people will be more likely to gawk than shelter.

False alarms are still frequent enough that most native Oklahomans' reaction to the first notification is to go outdoors and look around, camera in hand. We joke about it. I've done it myself! But I have learned that when the clouds directly overhead start moving in a circular motion, it's better to take cover. I'm not that daring. ;)

Tornadoes seem to strike with surgical precision, wiping out houses on one side of the street, while leaving others untouched or with only minor damage. That, to me, illustrates their electrical nature. Most of them are not mile-wide monsters.

In recent years, though, the idea that weathercasters can put out a warning days in advance has made me wonder if they are also tracking the emissions from the sun, and have been able to factor that activity into their forecasts. Tom Olenio brought to my attention the typical timing of earthquakes in Oklahoma (around 13 days after a spike in the K index to at least level 3, and that spike is typically 2-3 days after a CME is observed on the sun). That timeframe seems to be within reason for the improvements in predictions for timing and locations of tornado outbreaks. And in the last couple of years that I've been paying attention, there have been at least two occasions when we logged not only an earthquake, but also co-located, significant thunderstorms or tornado outbreaks that fit the timeline for Oklahoma to receive impacts from the sun's emissions.

The recent improvements in radar images are also fascinating to me. More often than not, a long-lasting string of thunderstorms gives the appearance of an old-fashioned, curly telephone cord being dragged along the ground. It reminds me of the appearance of filaments on the sun, before they get all tangled up and explode. The curly thunderstorm strings seem to sprout from the ground in a relatively small location, and eventually dissipate many counties away. Sometimes filaments on the sun seem to behave similarly.

I admit I have not studied Charles' tornado article. I need to do that. 8-)

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Re: Birth Of A Tornado

Unread post by ElecGeekMom » Wed May 29, 2013 1:43 pm

There is another line of storms brewing. Here is a link to an interactive radar:

http://www.news9.com/category/158742/in ... -esp-radar

The current storms look a lot like a curly telephone cord (it's not all in visible mode, so you have to imagine the rest of the cord).

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Re: Birth Of A Tornado

Unread post by Maol » Wed May 29, 2013 2:04 pm

I find it ironic the iconoclasticism of the EU exclusion principle has such sensitive trip wires with an exclusive set of hot-key buzzwords and forbidden buttons never to be pushed which conjure imagery so powerful as to crowd highly idiosynchronized crania so overwhelmingly there is insufficient elbow room for fine-tuning physical concepts (AKA preconceived notions). The iconoclasm of the EU exclusion principle can’t possibly apply to ionized matter or polar molecules can it? Is it because I mentioned gravity?


I did not imply “that ion beams from CMEs are making it all of the way through the atmosphere”.

That the solar wind and CMEs are ionized particles is well understood. Hydrogen and Oxygen are among the positive ions, and electrons are negative ions. When the twain shall meet in the right circumstances, they join, this is also well understood.

I am so sorry the word “cometary” appears to have conjured a vision of a full blown comet with a tail.

I used the word “cometary” in a context intended to be understood as “comet like” or “similar to comets” simply to provide an image of molecular clouds of water molecules coagulating in discrete masses bound by water’s polar attraction to itself.

I did not intend to imply, nor, as I understand his literature, did Prof. Louis Franks, that the masses of water entering the atmosphere are of the same high density as water and ice we experience here on Earth, or has been found in the comets from the outer solar system we see plunging into the Sun in SOHO images (what do you think happens to that water, by the way – where does it go?).

If you study Prof. Franks several texts, he describes the water comets as “the size and weight of a small house”. Do some math; what would the mass density be with the weight-to-volume ratio of a house? Large or small, a house has a lot of empty volume.

The point is, the masses of water entering the atmosphere are not very dense and Prof. Franks described them as such, in fact he describes them as “a cloud”. His mass reference is “20 to 40 tons”.

Do some more maths; on Earth, water weighs 62.4 lbs per cubic foot. 30 tons is less than 1000 cubic feet, smaller than a 10’ cube. Use some logic people. The “Solar Water” or “Comet (like) Water” is in the forms of diffuse cloud-like masses. Envision them as regions of high humidity within the Solar System. Water’s polar attraction to itself (the reason it has surface tension) results in clumps of humidity, but in the vast emptiness of space the density is low compared to our usual consideration of the terms “humidity”, “comet”, “cloud”, “ice”, “water”, “etc,” in terrestrial conditions we are familiar with.


A substantial amount of the matter entrained in soar wind and CMEs is atoms other than H and He. About 3% of the solar wind is positive ions of the composition shown in this image. About .75% of the solar mass and ejecta is Oxygen.
http://sohowww.nascom.nasa.gov/gallery/ ... 1_prev.jpg
Image

A CME can be 20 to 30 Billion tons of solar matter. Again, do the math, .75% of 20-30 Billion is a lot of Oxygen. Do some more maths and postulate how much Oxygen in a CME may fall into the influence of Earth’s magnetic and gravity fields. Assuming Physical Laws are the same throughout the local universe, the positive ions of Oxygen and Hydrogen and the negative ions (electrons) take part in electro-chemical reactions when the conditions are right, such as when they are trapped in Earth’s magnetosphere and cool below their ionization energy in the shadow of the planet. The other positive ions besides Oxygen are taking part in chemical reactions of their own when their conditions are right, but this particular discussion is about H and O and the necessary electrons to = H2O.

When the Solar Wind and CME mass enters the Earth’s magnetic field, as described in the links below, what do you think happens to the H and O and electrons? The Solar Wind giveth, and the Solar Wind taketh away, is obvious.


Sorry to cut and paste, but I think some here need to study some information about this.

First, if you haven’t partaken of Dr. Pollack’s lecture about water’s electrical properties, this is it … http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kd614bK3 ... re=related
… and it should be enjoyed first to make it easier to understand this conjecture that water is entering the atmosphere and with it the associated energies of electrical charge and inertia of mass in motion.


This is the CME that hit us on the 20th-21st of May. http://www.thesuntoday.org/thesuntoday/ ... im-den.gif Click the link to see a graphic of the Sun’s and the solar wind’s electromagnetic properties and mass ejecta in the Solar System with the solar wind and the CME in motion over several days, and the impact of the CME with Earth.

This is information about the magnetic portals through which solar matter from the Solar Wind and CMEs enters Earth’s atmosphere.

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/sunea ... rtals.html

› Play/Download video
A NASA-sponsored researcher at the University of Iowa has developed a way for spacecraft to hunt down hidden magnetic portals in the vicinity of Earth. These gateways link the magnetic field of our planet to that of the sun, setting the stage for stormy space weather. The Magnetospheric Multiscale (MMS) mission will study these portals. Credit: Science@NASA

A favorite theme of science fiction is "the portal"--an extraordinary opening in space or time that connects travelers to distant realms. A good portal is a shortcut, a guide, a door into the unknown. If only they actually existed....

It turns out that they do, sort of, and a NASA-funded researcher at the University of Iowa has figured out how to find them.

"We call them X-points or electron diffusion regions," explains plasma physicist Jack Scudder of the University of Iowa. "They're places where the magnetic field of Earth connects to the magnetic field of the Sun, creating an uninterrupted path leading from our own planet to the sun's atmosphere 93 million miles away."

Observations by NASA's THEMIS spacecraft and Europe's Cluster probes suggest that these magnetic portals open and close dozens of times each day. They're typically located a few tens of thousands of kilometers from Earth where the geomagnetic field meets the onrushing solar wind. Most portals are small and short-lived; others are yawning, vast, and sustained. Tons of energetic particles can flow through the openings, heating Earth's upper atmosphere, sparking geomagnetic storms, and igniting bright polar auroras.

NASA is planning a mission called "MMS," short for Magnetospheric Multiscale Mission, due to launch in 2014, to study the phenomenon. Bristling with energetic particle detectors and magnetic sensors, the four spacecraft of MMS will spread out in Earth's magnetosphere and surround the portals to observe how they work.

Just one problem: Finding them. Magnetic portals are invisible, unstable, and elusive. They open and close without warning "and there are no signposts to guide us in," notes Scudder.

Actually, there are signposts, and Scudder has found them.

Portals form via the process of magnetic reconnection. Mingling lines of magnetic force from the sun and Earth criss-cross and join to create the openings. "X-points" are where the criss-cross takes place. The sudden joining of magnetic fields can propel jets of charged particles from the X-point, creating an "electron diffusion region."

To learn how to pinpoint these events, Scudder looked at data from a space probe that orbited Earth more than 10 years ago.

"In the late 1990s, NASA's Polar spacecraft spent years in Earth's magnetosphere," explains Scudder, "and it encountered many X-points during its mission."

› View larger
Data from NASA's Polar spacecraft, circa 1998, provided crucial clues to finding magnetic X-points. Credit: NASA Because Polar carried sensors similar to those of MMS, Scudder decided to see how an X-point looked to Polar. "Using Polar data, we have found five simple combinations of magnetic field and energetic particle measurements that tell us when we've come across an X-point or an electron diffusion region. A single spacecraft, properly instrumented, can make these measurements."

This means that single member of the MMS constellation using the diagnostics can find a portal and alert other members of the constellation. Mission planners long thought that MMS might have to spend a year or so learning to find portals before it could study them. Scudder's work short cuts the process, allowing MMS to get to work without delay.

It's a shortcut worthy of the best portals of fiction, only this time the portals are real. And with the new "signposts" we know how to find them.

Related Links
› MMS Mission site
› NASA THEMIS site
› Polar Mission site
› Magnetic Portals Connect Earth to the Sun


Dr. Tony Phillips
Science at NASA




More about the “Portals”.
http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/sc ... 0oct_ftes/

Oct. 30, 2008: During the time it takes you to read this article, something will happen high overhead that until recently many scientists didn't believe in. A magnetic portal will open, linking Earth to the sun 93 million miles away. Tons of high-energy particles may flow through the opening before it closes again, around the time you reach the end of the page.

"It's called a flux transfer event or 'FTE,'" says space physicist David Sibeck of the Goddard Space Flight Center. "Ten years ago I was pretty sure they didn't exist, but now the evidence is incontrovertible."

Indeed, today Sibeck is telling an international assembly of space physicists at the 2008 Plasma Workshop in Huntsville, Alabama, that FTEs are not just common, but possibly twice as common as anyone had ever imagined.
Right: An artist's concept of Earth's magnetic field connecting to the sun's--a.k.a. a "flux transfer event"--with a spacecraft on hand to measure particles and fields. [Larger image]

Researchers have long known that the Earth and sun must be connected. Earth's magnetosphere (the magnetic bubble that surrounds our planet) is filled with particles from the sun that arrive via the solar wind and penetrate the planet's magnetic defenses. They enter by following magnetic field lines that can be traced from terra firma all the way back to the sun's atmosphere.

"We used to think the connection was permanent and that solar wind could trickle into the near-Earth environment anytime the wind was active," says Sibeck. "We were wrong. The connections are not steady at all. They are often brief, bursty and very dynamic."

Several speakers at the Workshop have outlined how FTEs form: On the dayside of Earth (the side closest to the sun), Earth's magnetic field presses against the sun's magnetic field. Approximately every eight minutes, the two fields briefly merge or "reconnect," forming a portal through which particles can flow. The portal takes the form of a magnetic cylinder about as wide as Earth. The European Space Agency's fleet of four Cluster spacecraft and NASA's five THEMIS probes have flown through and surrounded these cylinders, measuring their dimensions and sensing the particles that shoot through. "They're real," says Sibeck.

Now that Cluster and THEMIS have directly sampled FTEs, theorists can use those measurements to simulate FTEs in their computers and predict how they might behave. Space physicist Jimmy Raeder of the University of New Hampshire presented one such simulation at the Workshop. He told his colleagues that the cylindrical portals tend to form above Earth's equator and then roll over Earth's winter pole. In December, FTEs roll over the north pole; in July they roll over the south pole.

Right: A "magnetic portal" or FTE mapped in cross-section by NASA's fleet of THEMIS spacecraft. [Larger image]

Sibeck believes this is happening twice as often as previously thought. "I think there are two varieties of FTEs: active and passive." Active FTEs are magnetic cylinders that allow particles to flow through rather easily; they are important conduits of energy for Earth's magnetosphere. Passive FTEs are magnetic cylinders that offer more resistance; their internal structure does not admit such an easy flow of particles and fields. (For experts: Active FTEs form at equatorial latitudes when the IMF tips south; passive FTEs form at higher latitudes when the IMF tips north.) Sibeck has calculated the properties of passive FTEs and he is encouraging his colleagues to hunt for signs of them in data from THEMIS and Cluster. "Passive FTEs may not be very important, but until we know more about them we can't be sure."
There are many unanswered questions: Why do the portals form every 8 minutes? How do magnetic fields inside the cylinder twist and coil? "We're doing some heavy thinking about this at the Workshop," says Sibeck.
Meanwhile, high above your head, a new portal is opening, connecting your planet to the sun.

Author: Dr. Tony Phillips | Credit: Science@NASA
more information
2008 Huntsville Plasma Workshop -- home page
Below: In a presentation at the 2008 Plasma Workshop, Robert Fear of the University of Leicester, UK, presented some alternatives for the magnetic topology of FTEs. Possibilities include ropes (left column), cylinders (middle column), or bubbles (right column): abstract.

Space Weather resources:NOAA Space Weather prediction Center; Spaceweather.com
NASA's Future:US Space Exploration Policy

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CharlesChandler
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Re: Birth Of A Tornado

Unread post by CharlesChandler » Fri May 31, 2013 4:41 am

ElecGeekMom wrote:I was struck by the stair-step appearance of the big Moore tornado as it was photographed by storm chasers.
Do you have a link to the photography? Maybe I'll have an intelligent explanation -- maybe not. :)
ElecGeekMom wrote:Tornadoes seem to strike with surgical precision, wiping out houses on one side of the street, while leaving others untouched or with only minor damage.
Right -- and even if the "tornado" is a mile wide, the damage path might only be 100 yards wide. So there is a sub-vortex inside the outer vortex. The sub-vortex might do EF5 damage, while the outer vortex only does EF2 damage. Since that just isn't possible in fluid dynamics, it's another one of the proofs that there are EM forces in tornadoes.
ElecGeekMom wrote:Tom Olenio brought to my attention the typical timing of earthquakes in Oklahoma (around 13 days after a spike in the K index to at least level 3, and that spike is typically 2-3 days after a CME is observed on the sun).
If you know of somebody who has found a correlation between CMEs and tornadoes in the data, I'd love to see it. The CMEs have to be Earth-bound to matter, of course. And there are many factors that must be present for a tornado to form. For example, if the CAPE just isn't there, there won't be any thunderstorms, much less tornadoes. But if CMEs are a contributing factor, it should show up in the stats. If I had to guess, I'd say it's there, but nobody ever took the time to do the analysis.
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

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Re: Birth Of A Tornado

Unread post by ElecGeekMom » Fri May 31, 2013 5:36 pm

OK. I finally found a photo that was posted on Facebook, showing the tornado that came down near Tulsa yesterday. It shows the kind of stair-steps I was talking about. This is very similar to what I saw on TV when I was watching the storm coverage for the Moore tornado.
Tulsa tornado at 81st and hwy 51 - 2013-05-30.jpg
Tulsa tornado at 81st and hwy 51 - 2013-05-30.jpg (7.48 KiB) Viewed 28924 times
Regarding the predictions--I have been making notations in my Daytimer, first about EQs, and now about storms and EQs, since oftentimes a day that I mark for EQs has severe weather instead. It's not a nice, organized collection of data. I haven't decided on the best way to compile it. I like the monthly tables that the weather service produces. If they would only add columns for EQs and flares and geomagnetic storms, I think it would come together faster. ;)

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