TORNADO hunters may have a new ally – electricity.
Armed with only an antenna and a receiver, Ernst Schmitter of the University of Applied Sciences at Osnabrück in Germany and John Leeman from the Leeman Webb Storm Laboratory in Norman, Oklahoma, picked up low-frequency electromagnetic waves in a rotating storm known as a “supercell”. About 30 per cent of these storms spawn tornadoes.
Schmitter and Leeman believe it is the supercell’s swirling action that generates the signal. When dust particles and droplets within the storm rub against each other, they become oppositely charged. The lighter particles, which are mostly negative,…
