Weird Weather Patterns

[LaurieAG]

Last time three tornadoes went through NZ the next day.

[LaurieAG]

There may be a developing situation where Northern Australia/Coral Sea gets two Fujiwhara effects at the same time.

 

http://www.couriermail.com.au/news/queensland/queensland-could-see-two-fujiwhara-effects-as-excyclone-fletcher-and-excyclone-edna-threaten-to-merge-with-lows/story-fnihsrf2-1226817439297

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fujiwhara_effect

[Turtle]

Hi Laurie,

 

Just thinking that while the experiment lasts you could be watching the ISS HD video feed for weird weather/cloud formations as well as meteors, sprites, aurorae and other atmospheric phenomena. I understand there are apps that allow you to capture live vid, so you could make your own records for review and study.

 

May the force be g'donya mate.

 

Live feed with tracking map >> http://eol.jsc.nasa.gov/HDEV/

[LaurieAG]

Hi Laurie,

 

Just thinking that while the experiment lasts you could be watching the ISS HD video feed for weird weather/cloud formations as well as meteors, sprites, aurorae and other atmospheric phenomena. I understand there are apps that allow you to capture live vid, so you could make your own records for review and study.

 

May the force be g'donya mate.

 

Live feed with tracking map >> http://eol.jsc.nasa.gov/HDEV/

 

Thanks Turtle, I've bookmarked the NASA link. 

 

Now if I could only find some time as I've been very busy at work lately.

 

In the late 1980's, when I was working in a telecommunications design office, one of the young engineers (my age back then) was researching lightning strikes because they had a large impact on the stability of the copper wire phone system in our region. He was comparing notes with another engineer doing a similar project in Florida as they just had to connect recording equipment to the local exchanges to pick up the lightning strikes. I learnt the hard way about lightning strikes and electronic equipment. I regularly disconnected my pc power cord but failed to disconnect the phone line from the modem just once and ended up cooking it when a lightning strike a couple of kilometers away blew up a big tree near where the phone cables ran. That's one good thing about mobile broadband on a laptop :). 

 

You are right Turtle, sprites, being above the clouds that produce the lightning, would need to be monitored from above as their impacts don't go through to the ground, unless there is a physical connection between the two of course. It would be nice to set up an experiment that tracks sprites, or even better, tracks lightning strikes in real time and then tries to identify any sprites above. It would not be that difficult to do as long as you could detect them electrically as opposed to visually.