Thoughts

June 27, 2002
The interconnectedness of Storms

Following up on the storm watching last night, came this new information about the formation of summer thunderstorms in the US.

The analysis of 50,000 summertime radar images showed that the movement of blocks of enhanced rainfall from west to east, from the Rockies toward the Appalachians, is an identifiable pattern, even when traditional weather maps show none of the typical weather patterns, such as fronts or low pressure systems.

These eastward-moving blocks of enhanced thunderstorm activity still have individual storms popping up quickly and disappearing in a few hours, but it appears that the older storms give birth to new storms as the activity moves across the country. Thus, there is a much greater chance that a particular location will feel the effects of a thunderstorm when one of the activity areas is passing by, rather than either before or after it.

I remember watching the space shuttle footage of large storm chains producing beautiful patterns of lightning in the IMAX film Blue Planet; somehow the lightning in one end of the storm cluster would set off other storms nearby. I wonder if anybody has figured out what the mechanism for those bursts are yet.

When I was watching the storms last night, I was thinking about the sprites and elves that eminate out of the tops of the thunderstorms. While some of the electrical discharges (Check out the photos!) are fairly well understood, scientists are still at a loss to explain the blue jets and gamma-ray bursts. It wasn't until the mid-90s that it was even confirmed that the phenomena existed.

It amazes me just how little we know about the world immediately around us...

Posted by Patrick at June 27, 2002 10:09 PM
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