Storms

More intense and frequent thunderstorms linked to global climate variability

Texas A&M University
Phys.org
Tue, 22 Jun 2021 12:00 UTC

Large thunderstorms in the Southern Great Plains of the U.S. are some of the strongest on Earth. In recent years, these storms have increased in frequency and intensity, and new research shows that these shifts are linked to climate variability.

Co-authored by Christopher Maupin, Courtney Schumacher and Brendan Roark, all scientists in Texas A&M University's College of Geosciences, along with other researchers, the findings were recently published in Nature Geoscience.

In the study, researchers analyzed oxygen isotopes from 30,000-50,000 year old stalactites from Texas caves to understand trends in past thunderstorms and their durations, using radar-based calibration for the region's rainfall isotopes. They discovered that when storm regimes shift from weakly to strongly organized on millennial timescales, they coincide with well-known, global abrupt climate shifts during the last glacial period, which occurred between about 120,000 and 11,500 years ago.

Comment: In Pierre Lescaudron and Laura Knight-Jadczyk's book Earth Changes and the Human-Cosmic Connection they provide insight into just why we may be seeing an uptick now:

Hurricanes, lightning, and tornadoes

Introduction

The accumulation of cometary dust in the Earth's atmosphere plays an important role in the increase of tornadoes, cyclones, hurricanes and their associated rainfalls, snowfalls and lightning. To understand this mechanism we must first take into account the electric nature of hurricanes, tornadoes and cyclones, which are actually manifestations of the same electric phenomenon at different scales or levels of power. Because of this similarity, we will refer to these three phenomena collectively as 'air spirals' in the following discussion.

Discharge frequency

If air spirals are electrically driven, how then can we explain an increase in their frequency when the Sun's activity has dropped and the atmospheric E-field has therefore weakened¹? While the overall atmospheric E-field has indeed weakened, another factor must be taken into account. The increase in atmospheric dust concentration² reduces the electric conductivity of the atmosphere.³ Conductivity in the atmosphere is due to the mobility of small ions. When dust is present, these ions, instead of moving freely, attach to the relatively large dust particles and lose mobility, hence the decrease in atmospheric conductivity.⁴

[....]

This additional feature of dust particles - their ability to carry an electric charge - means that dust accumulation enables any given area of the atmosphere to carry potentially massive electric charges, which can differ from the charge of adjacent regions, from the charge of the ionosphere and from the charge of the Earth's surface.

[...]

Lightning and hurricanes seem to be a similar charge rebalancing processes. Lightning mostly occurs above continents and is far less frequent above oceans.¹ This may be due to the difference between ground conductivity and sea conductivity. When electrons start flowing upwards from the ocean, the high conductivity of salt water² usually prevents the formation of electron-deficient regions, which is one of the causes of lightning. However, when the upward electron flow occurs above a continent, the poor conductivity of the ground³ enables the formation of electron-deficient pockets that will trigger and receive lightning discharges.

Multiple waterspouts start Michigan's summer with a swirling fall staple and graupel

Mark Torregrossa
MLive
Wed, 23 Jun 2021 10:39 UTC

The start of summer in Michigan brought a typical fall weather character- a waterspout. In fact, after the waterspout, an even more winter-like precipitation form fell, called graupel.

To kick off astronomical summer this week, Michigan had some very cold air for this time of year. High temperatures were only in the 60s. When I looked at the upper-air temperatures, which are vitally important for waterspouts and graupel, the temperature over Leelanau County was 33 degrees at 5,000 feet and 19 degrees at 9,000 feet.

That's fall-like upper-air temperatures to start astronomical summer. The cold air flowing over the relatively warm water of Lake Michigan set off five waterspouts. The temperature difference between the air just over the water surface and the air aloft causes the waterspouts to form.

John Piombo, executive chef at The Homestead on Lake Michigan at the Sleeping Bear Dunes, caught the multiple waterspouts in the video below. The video was shot from the deck of Cafe Manitou, overlooking Lake Michigan.

Lightning strike kills 2 in Kandal, Cambodia

Khmer Times
Thu, 24 Jun 2021 10:20 UTC

Two Khmer Muslims were killed by a lightning strike while they were hunting by a lake. The incident happened at 2 p.m. on June 22 at the Sangke Som Dam in Po Tapang village, Svay Proteal commune, Saang district, Kandal province.

The Saang district police released the identity of the two victims. One of them is Mat Nansa, male, 28-years-old and the other is Sen Mael, male, 16-years-old. The two men are fishermen and are from Baren Krom village, Svay Proteal commune, Saang district, Kandal province.

On June 22, at 1 p.m. the father-in-law and father of the deceased, 53-year-old Man Sen, accompanied the two men to check traps that were laid out near the lake. Then it started to rain hard causing the three to seek shelter under two separate trees. Suddenly, lightning struck the tree that the two victims were under and the two men, killing them. Sen, the older man, was fortunately not harmed due to him being quite a distance away from the scene.

After examinations by the authorities, the bodies were returned to the family for funerary rites.

Lightning strike kills 2 in Mandaue City, Philippines

Yahoo! News
Wed, 23 Jun 2021 10:13 UTC

TWO men were killed after they were struck by lightning while foraging shellfish in Sitio Pajara, Barangay Umapad in Mandaue City on Tuesday afternoon, June 22, 2021.

Police identified the victims as Rey Cuyam, 28, a resident of Barangay Umapad; and Erwin Hirasol, 33, a resident of Barangay Mantuyong, Mandaue City.

Glendo Demape, who works for Umapad's barangay hall, said they and local police responded in the area after they received reports of casualties from a lightning strike that occurred there.

When they got there, barangay personnel and local police found Cuyam and Hirasol already lying just a few meters from the shoreline and had numerous burns on their bodies.

Massive waterspout off Louisiana coast

WVUE FOX 8 New Orleans
Wed, 23 Jun 2021 10:16 UTC

A boat of fishermen captured a massive waterspout off the coast of Terrebonne Parish in Louisiana on Monday, June 21.

Storms trigger flash-floods in Poland, Czechia, Germany and Italy - 2.3 inches of rain in just an hour

Richard Davies
Floodlist
Wed, 23 Jun 2021 09:38 UTC

A series of storms brought flash flooding to parts of Poland, Czechia, Germany and Italy from 20 to 22 June 2021. The city of Poznan in western Poland was among the hardest hit areas, where buildings including a hospital were damaged.

Previously storms in northern and eastern France caused flash flooding in Marne, Somme and Oise departments, where one person was reported missing in the city of Beauvais.

Poland

On 22 June stormy weather affected several areas of Poland, including the cities of Warsaw, Krakow and Poznan.

The State Fire Service carried out 1,685 interventions in response to storm damage in Wielkopolska (545), Małopolska (366), Mazovia (291), Kuyavian-Pomeranian (150) and Lodzkie (115). No injuries or casualties were reported.

Government Security Center said storms left 23,134 people were without without electricity mostly in the following Mazowieckie.

Deadly tornado touches down near Montreal, Canada

Isaac Olson
CBC.ca
Tue, 22 Jun 2021 05:33 UTC

A tornado was observed late Monday afternoon in Mascouche, Quebec

A man in his sixties is dead, after a tornado touched down in Mascouche, Que., late Monday afternoon.

The Canadian Red Cross is deploying teams to help 50 to 100 people displaced by the damage caused by the high winds.

Municipal officials have confirmed that the man, a father of three, died in storm just after 6 p.m. Between 75 and 100 homes were damaged by the tornado, according to local fire officials.

The mayor of Mascouche, Guillaume Tremblay, offered his condolences to the family of the victim, though he was unable to give more details on the cause of death. Tremblay said two others were lightly injured.

"We have houses that were blown off their foundations," he said.

"We have electric wires everywhere in the streets and a considerable amount of fallen trees."

Comment: Other tornadic activity in the past few days include:

An impressive waterspout forms near Le Havre, France

news.in-24.com
Tue, 22 Jun 2021 15:37 UTC

Worthy of an apocalyptic scene. A waterspout was observed on Monday June 21, 2021 around 6 p.m., not far from the town of Notre-Dame-de-Gravenchon, close to Havre (Seine-Maritime).

On social networks, Internet users have relayed impressive photos and videos of the phenomenon, which usually occurs in stormy weather.

Hail, thunderstorms and floods in Zug, Switzerland

Tetova News
YouTube
Tue, 22 Jun 2021 14:51 UTC

Zug is the largest town and capital of the Swiss canton of Zug in Switzerland. Its name originates from the fishing vocabulary; in the Middle Ages it referred to the right to pull up fishing nets and hence to the right to fish. The municipality had a total population of 30,618 in 31 December 2019.