New study reveals how monitoring atmospheric electric fields can enhance the prediction of severe weather events. The researchers found significant electric field changes during heavy precipitation by analyzing data from southern Israel. These findings suggest that electric field measurements can serve as early indicators for extreme weather, offering vital nowcasting capabilities, particularly in regions prone to flash floods and sudden shifts in weather.
A new study led by Dr. Roy Yaniv from the Institute of Earth Sciences at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem and Sheba Medical Center, in collaboration with Dr. Assaf Hochman from The Hebrew University and Prof. Yoav Yair from Reichmann University, has made significant advances in understanding how atmospheric electric field measurements can help predict severe weather events. By closely examining low-pressure winter weather systems, known as ‘Cyprus Lows,’ in the arid Negev Desert of southern Israel, this research reveals new insights into the role of the electric field in anticipating heavy precipitation.
Focusing on ‘wet’ Cyprus Lows—situations where rain falls as a cold front moves through—researchers observed substantial increases in the Potential Gradient of the electric field. Minute-by-minute data showed Potential Gradient values rising sharply from typical fair-weather levels (around 100-200 volts per meter) to hundreds and even thousands of volts per meter during rainfall. These surges occurred as convective clouds passed overhead, indicating that different cloud types produce unique electric field patterns. The study also highlighted that factors beyond rain intensity, such as cloud structure and the electrical charge of rain droplets, play roles in these electric fluctuations.
Through these findings, the researchers identified how electric field variations correlate with specific weather conditions. This enhanced understanding of electric field responses to weather events could significantly improve nowcasting systems for predicting extreme weather, particularly in regions prone to flash floods and sudden weather changes. In Israel, situated between desert and Mediterranean climates, slight shifts in a low-pressure system’s location can lead to dramatic changes in local weather. Consequently, monitoring electric field dynamics may provide early warning signs of severe weather, enhancing community preparedness in a changing climate.
“This research demonstrates how electric field variations can serve as indicators of shifting weather patterns, allowing us to anticipate severe weather events in real-time,” said Dr. Roy Yaniv. “The ability to identify these changes early is especially crucial in vulnerable regions like Israel, where even minor shifts in climate conditions can lead to major local impacts.”
This study highlights the importance of incorporating electric field observations into weather monitoring systems, particularly in arid and semi-arid regions that are increasingly vulnerable to the impacts of climate change.
Journal – Atmospheric Research The paper: 10.1016/j.atmosres.2024.107757
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Would “atmospheric electric fields” be related to lightning .?
I wonder…
I’m don’t know about cause and effect but from the beach in 1970 I saw horizon to horizon lightning in approaching hurricane Celia. It coalesced into a small storm with a sudden pressure drop, back side stronger which produced a trailer park like falling dominoes. Last reference was about splitting the Loop Current into two parts.
Molinari, J., N. Demetriades, R. Holle and D. Vollaro. 2006. Applications of long-range lightning data to hurricane formation and intensification. Preprint. 2nd Conf. Meteor. Appl. Lightning-Data:3.5. Referenced Claudette strong category one.
Price, C., M. Asfur and Y. Yair. 2009. Maximum hurricane intensity preceded by increase in lightning frequency. Nature Geoscience. 2:329-332.
Molinari, R. L. and G. A. Franceschini.1972. Bathythermograph sections across the path of Hurricane Celia. pp. 259-262. In, L. R. A. Capurro and J. L. Reid. Contr. Phys.Ocean. Gulf of Mex. 2. Tex. A & M Ocean. Stud.
The oldest study by Molinari is over 50 years ago. If my 10-day forecast aps weren’t so inaccurate I’d think they were making progress all this time.
I’m sure that they can lead to it. Definitely worth more study, to find out it it’s a local phenomenon or if field changes are more generally an indicator of strong changes in weather. The movement of large numbers of atoms building up static I would have expected, but I don’t normally think of that as being a field change (more like a spot charge). I’m happy to confess my ignorance.
I see the paean to the Gods of Climate Change at the end, so we can be sure that these are savey researchers who know how to butter their bread.
Charge in motion generates a field.
Water molecules have dipole moments.
QED
This all is well known in the right circles….
https://www.feynmanlectures.caltech.edu/II_09.html
From link:
“Reference:Chalmers, J. Alan, Atmospheric Electricity, Pergamon Press, London (1957).”
almost 70 years ago.
Whenever you think you have a new idea…
Interesting, in Texas, much of our rain is associated with thunderstorms. Which can be quite patchy and unpredictable. The weather reports can predict rain somewhere in the TV station’s reach, but not where or how much reliably.
Remembering Arte Johnson “Velly interesting…”
Hasn’t Dan Davidson been saying this in his textbook, Weatherman’s Guide to the Sun, for years?
The book costs about $200.00. I’ve got better plans for those dollars so you will have to tell me. I’ll wait quietly sipping on my wine. Thanks.
Ben Davidson and yes. I bought the PDF version a few years ago and follow his daily YouTube videos. A lot of good info in it especially about the electromagnetic influence on a lot of things on and in Earth. People are just realizing a lot of things he has stated have proven true like precursors to earthquakes, solar storms influencing peoples health and others.
I lived in Southern California’s Inland Empire for 28 years. My wife (at the time) and I independently came up with the idea of “earthquake weather.” It was a particular combination of air movements and temperatures that always seemed to occur ahead of an earthquake. Many other people had observed the same thing, and of course, it was “debunked” by weathermen and geologists alike. Another phenomenon associated with earthquakes was the appearance of strange lights above the ground, which I always thought might be due to subterranean fault stresses producing large voltages via the piezoelectric effect. I wonder now if there is something to the “earthquake weather” phenomenon, driven by piezoelectricity.
Electricity and its magnetic fields is what controls the Universe. Not gravity or dark matter. We live in a plasma dominated world.
If there were enough electric field mills everywhere there could be some fun science with it.
I wouldn’t be involved here in climate science if it weren’t for the induced drowsiness I often experienced that preceded rain and snow storms two decades ago. This I dubbed “the electric weather effect“, and have since extended the idea to geomagnetic activity and solar activity.
I used to believe with great confidence that certain types of weather like incoming rain storms made me drowsy. Believed it for years. So one day I started keeping a daily log. Precipitation, pressure, going up, going down, every metric I could think of.
I was terribly disappointed that hard data pointed to no such correlation.
But it’s nice sleeping during rain storms.
Yes it is, also, waking up very refreshed.
Keeping a log is real dedication. My wife and I informally keep track of it – it’s a hit and miss situation. I note that all storms do not have the same effect, but when they do have an effect it’s very obvious. That’s why more electric field mills would help better understand the conditions if and when it does induce sleepiness.
A decade ago we were driving south on I-75 from the Mackinaw bridge when I noticed I was getting very drowsy in the middle of the day just before a big hail storm ensued.
Drowsiness preceding rain is likely due to changes in atmospheric pressure.
Drowsiness during rain is likely due to the effects of white noise.
It is likely that geomagnetic activity as well as solar magnetic fields are part of what causes weather.
There are some co-relationships established between volcanism and ice ages that are still being explored. The indications are solar activity is the driver of climate change and not just solar storms and solar flares and mass ejections, but also the variable solar magnetic field (shifting north to south, for example).
With apologies to the Clinton campaign, “It’s the sun, stupid.”
Cause of the weather change, or result of the changing conditions that heralds the weather change? Either way, more study is needed to determine if testing for field strength changes should be added to the repertoire of weather stations for the good of humanity by improving forecasts.
I know in the hot dry Sacramento Valley, late summer evenings, electrostatic charge holds the dust in the air for a long time.
The researchers found significant electric field changes during heavy precipitation
Isn’t it kinda too late by then? If they said they found significant changes before heavy precipitation, I’d say hey, we ought to look into that. But during? What predictive power does “during” give us?
re: ” The researchers found significant electric field changes during heavy precipitation”
Researchers in their endeavors are preceded (by several centuries) BY THE WORK of one Benjamin Franklin.
re: “ If they said they found significant changes before heavy precipitation”
The tribolelectic effect is responsible for the charge separation/charge build-up in a T-storm, AND if one takes note it is hydro-meteor activity above the freeze line (i.e. it involves ice particle collision during their falling/rising within). No one seems to know this though …
ONE should also notice that tropical storms do not generate as much lightning/charge separation on account much of the convection occurs below the freeze line (this may not be entirely correct; it may be the super-cooled liquids unto the ice stage do exist in tropical convection BUT not to the degree compared to a classic T-storm.)
TAKE NOTE of the next land-falling hurricane and note the dearth of electrical (lightning) activity.
I once did a quick study and found there was more rain during heavy precipitation.
The next paper will discuss how increasing atmospheric concentrations of CO2 (and CH4, etc) lead to the change in the electric field.
SHOW ME your instrumental readings for a ‘clear day’ or you’re just talking bullocks; I played with JCL 113 Electrostatic-field reading meter a few years back and saw no values for a clear-weather day … now DURING a lightning storm its whole ‘nother things …
OBSERVATION: Its a well-known fact that during heavy precip here in Tejas during a T-storm that lightining activity becomes QUITE intense, it almost serves as a ‘proxy’ for heavy rainfall AND IN REAL-TIME compared to a 4 to 10 minute ‘wait’ for a WSR-88D (NWS RADAR) update (through any of the several consumer-facing RADAR-data providers) … I regularly listen to a LW (longwave ~ 300 kHz) receiver during T-storms for just this reason.
Story Tip
12 irrefutable proofs that climate change is real.
That actually describes CLIMATE NORMAL for many parts of the NH.
We don’t get snow where I am, but we get everything else listed….. 11/12 !! 🙂
Must be “Climate Change” ! 🙂
What I’m interested in is a single piece of proof, irrefutable or not, that it might be something to do with me.
Of course climate change is real. One only needs to understand the definition of climate and the derivative climate change to see the truth in this.
Climate is the (modern definition) 30 year average of weather.
Micro climate is defined as the 30 year average of weather for a local or region, defined to give people an idea of what weather to expect.
So, if the weather today at this moment is not exactly the same as the weather precisely 30 years ago, the average changes and thus climate changes.
Climate change is also defined as the long term change in weather patterns. Same definition, just worded differently.
It’s like so many scientists today have absolutely *NO* real world experience. Have they lived in their parents basement all their lives?
It’s nice that they have actually measured this phenomenon. But to describe as a new discovery just shows their lack of knowledge about the real world. As someone else noted, Ben Franklin knew of this phenomenon a long time ago, he just didn’t have the appropriate instrumentation to actually measure its value.
I think the new discovery is the possibility the technology could be beneficial in weather forecasting.
“Minute-by-minute data showed Potential Gradient values rising sharply from typical fair-weather levels (around 100-200 volts per meter) to hundreds and even thousands of volts per meter during rainfall.”
Can this be right?
Yep. Takes a pretty good potential gradient to cause a spark to bridge a protective gap in an antenna installation.
Absolutely correct.
EM fields and waves 101.
What are red sprites, blue jets and other luminous events in the upper atmosphere? The view from the space station is constant fireworks going on in the atmosphere.
Still mulling over how lightning can exit into space.
I know there is an answer, I just have not discovered the details.
As to red sprites and blue jets, etc., my understanding is they are lightning colored by the composition of the atmosphere through which they pass.
As a ham radio operator during my high school years, I had 2 antennas, a 10-meter dipole and a 40 meter dipole. I would have one connected to my antenna relay, and the other lying on the back of the desk near the relay. One afternoon while working at the desk I heard an occasional “snap” in front of me. I looked around for several minutes and found that the loose antenna connector was the source of the “”snapping “. Every minute, or so, there would be a spark that jumped from the center pin of the cable to the ground ring of the co-ax connector. 15 minutes, or so later a heavy thunderstorm passed though. I guess that this proved that “electric field variations can serve as indicators of shifting weather patterns”. I probably could have done the same by going upstairs and looking outside at the clouds, too.
Try to get a self-named “Climate Scientist” to look out a window.
Does the jet stream carry an electric charge?
Could it be affected by the sun’s magnetic field?
The h2o molecule has a charge dipole, i.e. the electric charge is not neutral throughout the molecule. While the sun’s magnetic field is probably not strong enough to generate an effect on H2O molecules in the jet stream, the solar wind which contains charged particles probably can. How much of an effect I don’t know.
I wasn’t thinking about H2O, just the charge accumulated by moving past relatively static air masses.
Basic EM theory at work.
Glad someone reported this.
When I was young, I was taught that lightning was caused by the friction between dry air and wet air. This is possible, but not the whole answer.
Water conducts electricity.
EM fields on conductors induce charge or, if there is a circuit, current.
Charge builds up until it reaches the potential where it can jump the gap. Door knob sparks, lightning, ESD damage to electronics are all due to this phenomenon.
Detecting the field strength before the charge jumps is doable.
Wasn’t this all discovered by Nikola Tesla some 100 years ago?
The fundamental physics, yes, but from an engineering approach.
First
“early indicators”
then
“electric field responses to weather events”
so what is “early “? Sounds like it already happened, unless there’s a probabilistic link between preceding field pattern and subsequent storm activity.
Ahhhh… “could significantly improve nowcasting systems”
Studies like this indicate just how much is not known, and also how silly it is to pay grant money to hundreds of PhDs in comfy chairs independently tweaking models based on the same datasets.