Accession Number:
AD0440215
Title:
TORNADO SFERICS FIELD PROGRAM.
Descriptive Note:
Final rept.
Corporate Author:
RAYTHEON CO WAYLAND MA
Personal Author(s):
Report Date:
1964-04-01
Pagination or Media Count:
1.0
Abstract:
The electrical features of tornadoes are reviewed. A discussion f the electrical and mechanical energy budgets for the Blackwell tornado is given and for tornadoes in general. A field program is reported which emphasizes electrical measurements taken for three tornadoes which occurred in the Norman area of Oklahoma in the Spring of 1963. The electrical measurements reported are corona current, field in tensity, 18.5 kc sferics and sferics across the spectrum of 10, 50, 100, 175 kc and 30 megacycles. The data is interpreted to show that large horizontal field gradients could exist in tornado clouds. An anomalous sferics pattern acorss the sferics spectrum is reported, which shows that the sferics associated with the tornado have repetitious but aperiodic bursts of sferic radiation. Correlation of this data with a laboratory experiment illustrating electrostatically generated fluid vorticity is suggested. Author