What natural (or unnatural ?) phenomenon can cause these curious wind patterns?

[Maol]

I don't recall ever seeing weather patterns or wind flow like this. What is the cause of these circular patterns in the wind flow, this bull's-eye pattern at 10hPa (~26,500 m) and the wind flowing radially from a single small locale at ground level ?

https://earth.nullschool.net/#2020/05/1 ... 27.29,3000

https://earth.nullschool.net/#2020/05/1 ... 27.29,3000

What can make the wind pattern behave this way, with the radial outflow from a small locale at ground level, and what can cause the bull's eye pattern in the high altitude winds.

If you use the function to move ahead and back an hour at a time with the image at 10hPa you can find two distinct bull's eyes that overlap each other and nearly covering the whole of Texas.

This occurred 2020/05/16/0930Z and was associated with this extreme weather event of high wind, heavy rain, golf ball size hail and lightning which progressed from south Texas into the Gulf.

https://weather.us/radar-us/usa/20200516-085000z.html

I hope these links work with the correct time line as they did when I test drove them before posting this.

[JP Michael]

Yep the links are working. The surface level 'mushrooms' (as I call them - 2nd image) are common phenomenon in the night cycle. I've noticed them in the Australian desert and western regions eg.
3rd of January, 23:00 AEST, just after the bushfires on the East Coast:
https://earth.nullschool.net/#2020/01/0 ... 22.02,1979.
But by 14:00 on 4th Jan they have weakenen/moved/morphed:
https://earth.nullschool.net/#2020/01/0 ... -25.95,990
And return again in the next night cycle, 20:00 on 4th Jan:
https://earth.nullschool.net/#2020/01/0 ... 19.41,1979

I cannot explain what causes them, but its a surface wind phenomenon possibly related to current being put out by surface features: check for mountains in the area affected (I'm not good with my US topography). If you increase the altitude you will see that these 'mushroom' winds are usually a near-surface feature.

As for the upper level disturbance in USA, if you go back in time to UTC 00:00-12:00 on 14/05/2020, you will find another similar disturbance. Was there storm activity that day as well?

Another one between the same UTC hours on 12/05/2020

And again, between UTC 06:00 and 18:00 on 08/05/2020.

The only words I have to describe it is it looks like an upper atmospheric 'ping', especially if you click back quite a few hours (or days, eg. start on 3rd May), and then rapidly clickfest forward through the loaded images like as if it were a gif. It's either a repetitive natural phenomenon, or deliberately caused.

You might need to poke around in the archives of previous years. Try changing the date to 2019 or 2018 and see if you can find any evidence of the same phenomenon occuring at 10 hPa. Given they're occuring at roughly the same time of the day, it shouldn't be too hard to determine if it is something regularly occuring in the upper atmosphere, or whether its a 2020 phenomenon caused possibly by US weather modification programs.

[Maol]

Was the example in Australia accompanied with a heavy precipitation event? The Texas example was coincident with an extreme weather event of high wind, heavy rain, golf ball size hail and lightning which progressed from the south Texas coastal plain into the Gulf.

The peculiar localized wind emanating from a central point with radial outflow could be seen as analogous to the effect of directing a jet of air perpendicular to flat surface, the Texas coastal plain is well described as 'nearly level'.

First, must acknowledge there is the possibility of Prof. Louis A. Frank's house-sized ice comets.

However, this is the postulate:

As the event in Texas occurred in the middle of the night, it leads to ponder if a large mass of H2O entered the atmosphere from an extra-terrestrial source, such as the portion of the magnetotail H2O plasmoid that snaps back toward the planet when the larger portion breaks off the tail and is ejected into, or torn away by, the passing solar wind.

It is known Earth's magnetosphere contains H2O plasma and provides OH/H2O to the lunar surface when the Moon passes through the magnetotail.

When a magnetotail plasmoid ejection event occurs, might not some of the earthbound portion of the H2O plasmoid impinge upon the lower atmosphere when the magnetohydrodynamic force accelerates it back toward the planet. By this means a relatively large mass of H2O, and associated electric charge, could enter the atmosphere at a particular location or region in a short period of time, and consequently, a weather event of lightning, golf ball size hail, heavy rain and wind, all emanating outward from a central locale.

[JP Michael]

Was the example in Australia accompanied with a heavy precipitation event?

The opposite. We had a sudden and severe heatwave that day. But I was referring only to surface phenomenon; we had no upper-atmospheric 'ping' event, and I could not find evidence of any such upper-atmosphere disturbances during the Australian severe weather events back in January.

As the event in Texas occurred in the middle of the night, it leads to ponder if a large mass of H2O entered the atmosphere from an extra-terrestrial source, such as the portion of the magnetotail H2O plasmoid that snaps back toward the planet when the larger portion breaks off the tail and is ejected into, or torn away by, the passing solar wind.

It is known Earth's magnetosphere contains H2O plasma and provides OH/H2O to the lunar surface when the Moon passes through the magnetotail.

When a magnetotail plasmoid ejection event occurs, might not some of the earthbound portion of the H2O plasmoid impinge upon the lower atmosphere when the magnetohydrodynamic force accelerates it back toward the planet. By this means a relatively large mass of H2O, and associated electric charge, could enter the atmosphere at a particular location or region in a short period of time, and consequently, a weather event of lightning, golf ball size hail, heavy rain and wind, all emanating outward from a central locale.

It's an interesting hypothesis. Note that water has multiple charge phases: OH-, H3O+, H5O2+. Whether these can survive energetic plasma environments such as a plasmoid ejection event someone else can produce some papers, etc.

What is interesting about the US event is that there is not just a single ping, but double. And this occurs more than once, double each time. I find it hard to believe that a randomly occuring twinned-'plasmoid ejection event' would happen in the roughly the same location of the US upper atmosphere on 3 separate occasions.

[Maol]

Was the example in Australia accompanied with a heavy precipitation event?

The opposite. We had a sudden and severe heatwave that day. But I was referring only to surface phenomenon; we had no upper-atmospheric 'ping' event, and I could not find evidence of any such upper-atmosphere disturbances during the Australian severe weather events back in January.

As the event in Texas occurred in the middle of the night, it leads to ponder if a large mass of H2O entered the atmosphere from an extra-terrestrial source, such as the portion of the magnetotail H2O plasmoid that snaps back toward the planet when the larger portion breaks off the tail and is ejected into, or torn away by, the passing solar wind.

It is known Earth's magnetosphere contains H2O plasma and provides OH/H2O to the lunar surface when the Moon passes through the magnetotail.

When a magnetotail plasmoid ejection event occurs, might not some of the earthbound portion of the H2O plasmoid impinge upon the lower atmosphere when the magnetohydrodynamic force accelerates it back toward the planet. By this means a relatively large mass of H2O, and associated electric charge, could enter the atmosphere at a particular location or region in a short period of time, and consequently, a weather event of lightning, golf ball size hail, heavy rain and wind, all emanating outward from a central locale.

It's an interesting hypothesis. Note that water has multiple charge phases: OH-, H3O+, H5O2+. Whether these can survive energetic plasma environments such as a plasmoid ejection event someone else can produce some papers, etc.

What is interesting about the US event is that there is not just a single ping, but double. And this occurs more than once, double each time. I find it hard to believe that a randomly occuring twinned-'plasmoid ejection event' would happen in the roughly the same location of the US upper atmosphere on 3 separate occasions.

I find it hard to believe that a randomly occuring twinned-'plasmoid ejection event' would happen in the roughly the same location of the US upper atmosphere on 3 separate occasions.

No reason it couldn't diverge into separate plasmoids if it encounters turbulence or perhaps some localized disturbance in the Earth's magnetic field or perhaps high altitude wind.

[hlg]

very interesting patterns in the uppermost posting...

isn't that the exact location where some 65 mio years ago a comet is said to have ended life of the dinosaurs?

the rim of the crater is right below the shown rims in the wind pattern above texas and gulf, if i remember that right...

linked to this event perhaps if that "impact" theory gets at least the location right? i do believe more in an thunderbolt-like event...

https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-21709229

[Maol]

I think you are referring to the Chicxulub impact crater? The center of it is buried beneath the north coast of theYucatán Peninsula in Mexico, approximately 700 miles SE from the Texas location in the OP.

[Osmosis]

Perhaps a very large Kimberlite pipe?
Osmosis

[JP Michael]

I think I have a culprit for the surface-level "mushroom" winds:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Downburst

Surely, there is an upburst variant that the wind maps are clearly demonstrating (and no-one seems to have studied much: upburst doesn't even show up on wiki as a thing).

Basically reverse the wind direction of a downburst. Instead of being cloud-to-ground, I suspect these are violent ground-to-cloud movements of electric current which causes the burst of wind.

[JP Michael]

For those who have no idea what we're talking about, I made two videos of the phenomenon.

USA - 1st May through 22nd May

Indian Ocean - 12th May through 22nd May

[hlg]

I think you are referring to the Chicxulub impact crater? The center of it is buried beneath the north coast of theYucatán Peninsula in Mexico, approximately 700 miles SE from the Texas location in the OP.

sorry, i did not remember that right then... thanks

if we think of strong updraft not only in terms of less dense due to water vapor but as electrical interactions, then there should be a deflection in earths magnetic field... (right hand rule)

so i had expected a strong rotating component in the "updraft"-current.

[JP Michael]

Do bursts typically exhibit rotation, though? I know sustained currents do (eg. high or low pressure systems). It is a peculiar wind pattern that is not localised to the USA, as I demonstrated in my video above where similar circular 'ripples' emanate out from epicentres over Phillippines, eastern India, and the central Indian Ocean just yesterday (where, I will add, an impressive surface-level storm cell has now developed. Will have satellite photos of this tomorrow once all of today's imagery has come through, and will redo a closeup of the Indian Ocean pings which occurred just to the west of where this surface storm front has developed).

[hlg]

thumbs up!

[JP Michael]

As promised.

It seems the repeated rendering has significantly reduced the quality of some of the imagery (especially from earth.nullschool.net), so if you want to check it out yourself you can do so here (turn animations off).

[Maol]

More bull's-eye patterns last night at 10hPa (~26,500 m) over a similar Texas area as those in the links in the OP. Again, associated with heavy thunder storms and precipitation. If you bump this ahead and back with the < and > arrows you can see these bull's eyes persisted for several hours. These patterns perhaps are, or some way related to, atmospheric gravity waves .. ?

https://earth.nullschool.net/#2020/05/2 ... 30.20,1250

https://weather.us/radar-us/usa/20200525-061000z.html