Gulf oil slick and lightning risk
Posted by
James g on 5/2/2010, 1:40 am
Does anyone familiar with the hazzards of open sea oil spills have any idea as to whether or not the oil slick could be set ablaze by lightning strikes ? This may sound nuts,but I have a imaginatory image in my minds eye of a vast oil slick which has caught fire,''due to lightning''.Thanks to the intense heat and resultant huge volumes of water vapor being advected into the atmosphere over and surrounding that fire, massive storm clouds grow ever higher into the atmosphere and begin to rotate.The unusually tall and intense thunderstorms soon after rotation begins become increasingly organized at a pace not seen before by meterologists. I then can see an imaginary image of a super intense '',hurricane like'' storm similar to the famous North Carolina ''Tornado Cane'' which formed in south central NC several years ago.That unusual storm system began I believe as just a cluster of strong convective storms that due to atmospheric conditions turnend into what was essentialy a cross between a very large f-2-f-3 twister and a small land based hurricane ! '' If you are not familiar with this very real but strange storm,please google ''-NC Tornadocane''
Now although the storm I am imagining is just that,a creation of my imagination,the underlying ideas driving me to imagine such a fire fueled super storm are based upon my knowledge of the NC. tornadocane and the fact that thunderstorms do indeed develop rapidly over super heated portions of the surface of the earth. Forest fires and volcanic eruptions very often lead to convective storms which develop at a very rapid pace. |
142
In this thread:
Gulf oil slick and lightning risk - James g, 5/2/2010, 1:40 am Post A Reply
This thread has been archived and can no longer receive replies.