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Lightning forcing of tornado

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Abstract

It is mathematically noted that the waveform perturbations that caused the electric field due to the lightning burst during intracloud (IC) or cloud to ground (CG) lightning cause strong fluctuations in the induced magnetic field which is summation of two components: (i) highly fluctuating [dominant] and (ii) relatively steadier [weaker]. As an example, a periodic cosine function of magnetic field with microsecond or submicrosecond period has been mathematically formulated. Magnetohydrodynamic analysis within the corona envelope up to the skin depth in the lowest layer, above ground level, indicated that mean Lorentz force is comprised of two parts (i) magnetic pressure rotational component and (ii) irrotational component. Later is product of horizontal magnetic field gradient (HMG) and exponential term (ET). Intracloud HMG helps funnel lowering below the cloud base, and Bernoulli’s principle causes the cloud formation within the funnel. Minor increase in magnetic field (B0) makes large change in HMG as magnetic field term appears as square (B02). This explains why positive lightning {refer Sect. 5.1 col. 4 and 5 of Tables 1 and 2 showing typical values of Bi and Bh for positive and negative CG lightning, respectively} is more favourable to higher EF tornadogenesis and long-track tornadoes. Polarity reversal is often indicative of long-track tornadoes because after its formation even relatively weaker negative CG lightning can help sustain it to longer track. Analytical expressions for buoyancy—change, due to lightning jump, have been also examined.

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Adopted from Rakov et al. (1996)

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Acknowledgements

Author is indebted to Dr Abhaya Srivastava, North Eastern Space Applications Center, Dr. S.D. Pawar of Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology, Pune, Dr. Geeta Vichare of Indian Institute of Geomagnetism and Dr. Udaya Kumar of Indian Institute of Sciences, Bangalore, and for extremely useful discussions on atmospheric lightning and earth’s magnetic field. Thanks are also due to Mr. Rahul Rawat for extending help in computing horizontal magnetic field intensity. Author is also indebted to Mr. Pavankumar Dodya for graphical and tabular assistance.

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  1. Department of Mathematics, MIT World Peace University, Pune, India

    Prabhat Kumar

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Kumar, P. Lightning forcing of tornado. Acta Geophys. 71, 1967–1981 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11600-022-00984-4

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