Electrically Induced Rain

[darksai]

I've noticed with this storm over the weekend here in Cape Town, is that bursts of heavy rain seem correlate very strongly with thunder and lightning. I don't just mean that there tends to be heavier rain when it thunders in general, it's really as though the lightning triggers rain somehow and possibly vice versa.

It wasn't to find data on just such a correlation:
_http://www.gr.ssr.upm.es/~jambrina/rayos/www.nwstc.kc.noaa.gov/d.HMD/Lightning/Hvyrain.htm

A study by Kane (1993) showed the temporal and spatial relationships between CG [cloud-to-ground] lightning and precipitation during an isolated slow-moving nocturnal thunderstorm over the Mid-Atlantic states. The thunderstorm propagated slowly southward and resulted in a localized precipitation maximum of 11 cm (over 4 in). The lightning flash density field was compared to the rainfall pattern and the volumetric and spatial distribution of rainfall were related to the concentration of CG strikes. Kane found that the maximum rainfall coincided well with those areas which received the highest concentration of CG strikes. The greatest concentration of CG strikes (57% of the total storm CG strikes) produced just over half of the total volumetric precipitation over only 16% of the area that received rainfall. The heaviest rainfall at the National Weather Service forecast office in Sterling, Virginia began just after the 5 min CG lightning peaked within 6, 9, 12 mi. (10, 20, 30 km) radii of the office. The greatest rainfall rate was recorded in the 5 to 40 min period following the peak in the 5 min CG lightning at the office.

and the actual paper:

_http://www.nwas.org/digest/papers/1993/Vol18-Issue3-Dec1993/Pg2-Kane.pdf‎

Everyday experience tells us that thunderstorms bring rain, but this shows a correlation locally within storms. Nowhere do you ever hear about such tight correlations between different parts weather that occur within a system, as though we are to take for granted that it's all a random smörgåsbord of events. Not surprising as rain, snow, lightning, etc, are all taught as isolated phenomena, that they are more or less caused by similar factors but have little to do with each.

The idea that I have at the moment is that the increased precipitation has something to do with the discharge of electricity, or perhaps release of energy in a more general sense. Further research along this line could bring us closer to understanding how rain gets to be conductive in the first place (note the C's comment in the recent session was "rain can conduct")

 

[Laura]

Excellent find and good line to follow up in case there is anything else. It sure gives one pause to think, doesn't it? And with this recent geomagnetic storm that seems to be coming from nowhere that is certain, one wonders how much rain that will produce? And where...

 

[darksai]

I've found here _http://www.sciencedaily.com/videos/2006/1011-mysteries_of_thunderstorms.htm that there is a correlation between ice mass in clouds and lightning flashes, even stronger than rain and lightning. Looking at some of the actual papers (_http://tinyurl.com/mkvwbcx, _http://tinyurl.com/lsu399s and a simplified presentation: _http://tinyurl.com/k5exd57) they rely heavily on the Non-Inductive Charging (NIC) Theory and basically seem to be using the ice-lightning correlation to support it, even though it's not quite stated that way, the "purpose" being rather to be able to predict weather rather than explain it. In the first link's paper, they say they're basing their study on NIC, which says ice cause lightning, but go on to say that further research should investigate if lightning can be used to predict ice produced by thuderstorms! Even looking at the graph on page 14, the change in lightning average CLEARLY PRECEDES correlating change in ice flux.

Anyway, since NIC is basically yet another plausible lie in the first place, it's hardly worth fussing over their circular reasoning. So the questions of further investigation would be to find out what is the real nature of these connections between clouds, ice, rain, electric charge and discharge (lightning), and temperature. I have a feeling the C's comments on the Earth's core's fluctuating temperature and conductivity might be related in some quite unexpected way; they mention in the papers that supercooled liquid water is essential ingredient of the so-called "charging zone", which at a brief glance has some interesting features too:

_http://www.lsbu.ac.uk/water/anmlies.html

Notable amongst the anomalies of water are the opposite properties of hot and cold water, with the anomalous behavior more accentuated at low temperatures where the properties of supercooled water often diverge from those of hexagonal ice.c As (supercooled) cold liquid water is heated it shrinks, it becomes less easy to compress, its refractive index increases, the speed of sound within it increases, gases become less soluble and it is easier to heat and conducts heat better.

Nothing on conductivity in there though, sadly.

 

[Jacques]

Well for the last three nights, we had heavy rain with thunder and lightning and it is quite unusual to have that for three days in a row. Don't remember the last time it happened here.

 

[aaronfransen]

With the tornadoes ripping through the US Midwest, I'm reminded of the SOTT story that we are being bombarded by energetic particles.

http://www.sott.net/article/262327-Geomagnetic-storm-of-an-unknown-source

Could it be that all this energy is causing the cloud formations and leading directly to all these powerful storms around the world right now?

 

[Deleted member 8431]

Well for the last three nights, we had heavy rain with thunder and lightning and it is quite unusual to have that for three days in a row. Don't remember the last time it happened here.

And it seems like there was another thunderstorm warning for Québec city today as well.

Charlevoix got flooded, Saguenay is on the verge of being so and lots of houses still have no electricity as well.

Three days in a row is quite unusual indeed. Especially with damages, floods, loss of electricity all over many different locations. I don't have a TV so I don't know what meteorologists are saying about this but anyhow, I do find things to be "heating up" more and more (which is quite obvious anyways).

Last summer, I was in the Beauce-Nord area and I remember that we've had intense ones as well as opposed to the average. I also remember that at one point, we have had massive thunderstorms two days in a row which I had already found quite unusual (and so did my uncle who has lived there for 24 years). What struck me the most was the quantity of rain and lightning (for the others as well). I'm going back there next week or so for the duration of my vacations. We'll see what happens.

 

[Cosmos]

I'm wondering how Gerald Pollack's "Electrically Structured Water" is connected to that?

GERALD POLLACK: Electrically Structured Water
http://cassiopaea.org/forum/index.php/topic,31363.msg415790.html#msg415790

 

[psychegram]

I recently moved to Santiago, which is typically a dry city. It's rained a few times in the past month ... about two weeks ago, we had an absolutely epic thunderstorm, accompanied naturally by torrential rain. The Chilenos were freaked out, as apparently such weather is practically unknown here.

 

[zim]

In this month we have had less rain compare to the last year but there are a phenomenon that we noticed, the rays are brighter, in fact during the driving, way back home, we got dazzled by a ray, it took our attention inmediately since we never saw some huge light from a ray

 

[Shared Joy]

Hi,
I recently listened to James McCanney's radio show of June 6, 2013,

http://www.jmccanneyscience.com/WeeklyRadioShowArchivesSubPage.HTM

where he talks about tornadoes and electric storms. In the last 15 minutes he explains the electrical phenomena related to tornadoes and lightnings, which I'll try to transcribe here:

The Sun releases the solar wind which is a stream of highly charged particles, mainly protons. Therefore, the Sun becomes slightly negatively charged afterwards, relative to the solar system. This polarization is maximum during the summer months. The solar wind acts like a "pressure" on Earth. There are some excess currents in the system, which forms a kind of battery *the solar capacitor".

Some currents of the solar wind return to the Sun to maintain a balance in the system, and the Earth passes through these sheets of return currents. In outer space the Earth discharges this solar capacitor.

The electrons are the main charge carriers in the system. They move out of the Sun, towards the Earth, and charges the Earth electrically. The Earth's ionosphere is the collecting point of these electrons coming from the Sun.

But the Earth has a geomagnetic field. When the charged particles of the solar wind approach, the protons and the electrons separate and start flowing in opposite directions This augments the Earth's magnetic field. There are 5 layers of magnetic fields in Earth (starting from Earth out);
1. the Earth's geomagnetic field locked in by Earth's metals
2. the jet streams in the atmosphere
3. the jet streams in the upper ionosphere
4. the van Allen belts
5. the plasma magnetic fields
and beyond this last one is the solar wind

When storm systems occur in the solar wind, they compress the Earth's plasma magnetic fields and those causes changes in the voltage levels in the upper ionosphere.
And when cloud sustems form, they change the dynamics of the Earth capacitor and allow the electric currents to pass through them and come down to the Earth. This explains the electric discharges, which are more frecvent in summer, though they can happen anytime when the capacitor is being pierced.
So , according to J MacCanney, electric phenomena ( lightning), comes from outside of Earth. And water is a good conduit for electricity

However, lightning is reported to strike from inside Earth , without any storm:

Session 22 July 2012
A: Did we forget to mention electric charge enhancing man made sources or even acting without guides?

So
There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.
- Hamlet (1.5.166-7), Hamlet to Horatio

Everybody has to "open up" to new vistas. I think, we live in wondrous times.
Joy