Re: from my "uneducated view"
Posted by Mike_Doran on 7/17/2009, 11:11 pm
Doug,

There is no inconsistancy, as I think CT is pointing out, between what you are saying about the accepted science of how the charges themselves are created inside a thunderstorm and what I am trying to say about how a disorganzing tropical storm causes there to be more lightning even at great distances.  The hard part is you have to trust my account of observations of this phenomenon--and I guess if after the season you have seen enough of it compared to what it looks like without a tropical storm disorganizing, you will get the same emperical picture.  What we are discussing then is what is occurring to make it so.

There is a voltage gradiant from the upper atmosphere to the lower atmosphere--it's about 150 volts per meter.  But it varies.  Air, of course, is not conductive.  The charges inside a thunderstorm, however, build up enough to cause the air to become what is called 'plasma'.  The plasma will move by the exact same voltage gradiants by the same rules of electrics--negative charges will be attracted to positive charges and positive to negative and so forth.  All I am saying is that the gradiant is affected by the discharging tropical storm and so the pathways are easier and there are more strikes.  This then increases the actual potential difference and an equillibrium is again reached and the strikes cease.
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Near-Constant Lightning/Thunder - B-Lowcountry, 7/16/2009, 8:40 pm
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