Emotions and Weather
Part of the continuing Blogger’s Consortium series with simultaneous posts on the topic being done by Ashok, gaelikaa, Grannymar, Helen, Judy, Magpie 11, Maria, Marianna and Ramana – in alphabetical order. Today’s topic hatched in my owned fevered imagination!
I watched a marvelous explanation of the weather extremities of Tornado Alley as the area from Texas up into South Dakota is known. It is called this because it has the highest incidence of tornados in the world! However, as much as I looked, I didn’t note what 1 day/decade, 60% near peak means, LOL. All I know is, growing up out there, they were around a lot! It is no accident that The Wizard of Oz used Kansas as its locale, as I’ve said before on this blog. My family and many of my classmates are still back in that target zone, many of them who correspond on this site.
But, back to our explanation which only looks at one aspect of major storm creation in this area, what some of the conditions are that form what are called supercells in Tornado Alley.
Supercell: a thunderstorm that is characterized by the presence of a mesocyclone; a deep, continuously-rotating updraft. For this updraft to be powered and continuous, it requires cold, heavy air over warm, light air. The lighter, warmer air wants to rise and the heavier cold air wants to descend. But, they need to find a pathway past each other to do this.
This brings me to part of the marvelous explanation. A physicist had two bottles attached to one another at the neck. One bottle was filled with water, one was filled with air and it was sitting on her desktop with the airy bottle on top. That is a very stable configuration and that air loves to stay where it is and the water loves to stay where it is. It will just sit there. Without moving. Happy.
Then, she turned the bottles over and the demonstration started to become interesting. The water was heavier than the air and was unstable until it could get back below it. These two fluids – it doesn’t matter whether we are talking about gasses or liquids, they are fluids that can flow around – want to flow past one another. And they just didn’t do a very smooth job of it. There would be a BLOOP as a bubble made its way past the water, then nothing, then seemingly randomly another bubble. Slow. Inefficient. Turbulent.
Then she did a simple thing: she took the bottles and swirled them around a vertical axis. In other words, the water stayed above the air, but now a vortex developed from the angular momentum in the water. The water went to the bottom bottle very quickly and likewise, the air to the top.
So, what happened? The water flowed down the outside of the vortex interface and the air up the inside of the interface. Now, the two different density fluids could slide efficiently past one another. They achieved laminar flow. Soon, all was stable again.
These inversion layers – cold air above hot – happen pretty often all over the place. We have it happen in the Bay Area. So, what makes Tornado Alley so special? The northern hemisphere polar 
jet stream carries air in general across the US moving from West to East – or else it is part of the same effects of planetary rotation, I am uncertain which – and air is carried slamming into the Rocky Mountains from the West. This is like a skateboarder heading quickly into a ramp and going airborne. It is cooling rapidly as it ascends and shoots right on over the Eastern Slope of the Rockies hell bent for the Great Plains. And they call those winds “Mariah.” Joe and Tess aren’t part of the game yet.
But, there is another player in the game. This is the warm, moist air that sweeps north from the Gulf of Mexico. And where does it sweep to? Why, right up Tornado Alley, don’t you know? And that warm, moist air is whistling along like a freight train at ground level.
So, what do you end up with? A big sheet of cold air at higher altitude moving East above a sheet of HOT air moving North. But, it isn’t like the Bay Area inversion layers, these two layers are SO different, they REALLY want to trade places. And then, there is a little wind shear somewhere that causes that air to turn a bit and WHOOOSH! It’s like someone pulled the plug in the bathtub. We have a supercell! And one in four of those supercells gets carried away and generates major and sometimes long-lasting violence.
So, oh perceptive ones, you are wondering if I have forgotten about the connection to emotions! I have not. The connection that I see is the propensity for any system to return to stasis, to stability, to equilibrium. We sit in a stable emotional state. At least a lot of us do (although some seem to experience turmoil continuously). Then something happens and our world turns upside down. We have an emotional inversion! Our internal system REALLY starts experiencing those “bloops” of turbulence. Everything is chaotic – until the cathartic storm cuts loose! Something sets a vortex of e-motion in motion and we have a rush of anger and grief and terror!
At the end … there is debris to clean up and we feel spent. But, somehow, we are stabilized again. And oddly relieved …
LATE BONUS ADDITION TO THIS POST!!! Sent to me by Maynard, so that it is possible to tell what the weather really is:
Now … I feel secure again!
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Tags: Emotions, Storms, Weather
I like to sit where I am – happy. Life should be so simple! But, as you so nicely sum up, we stabilize again! And again.
Rummuser´s last blog ..Weather And Emotions.
I never had that weather explained to me before. I often wondered if our emotions mimicked the weather. We need more hot air in Ireland…. no scrap that, it will only give us more rain!
Grannymar´s last blog ..Weathered Emotions
Ramana, it does seem pretty primal, doesn’t it?
I loved the analogy between the storm and emotions, it tied everything together! Living in Alabama, we too have a few of those tornadoes! One of the biggest difference between midwest tornadoes and southern tornadoes is that midwest tornadoes usually(not always, but usually) happen in the daytime and southern tornadoes (when you can’t see them) usually happen at night! Yes, I suffer from SAD also, just like your daughter. I’m one of those that say “I dread seeing winter arrive, you get up in the dark and go to bed in the dark.” Though I’ve worked out a deal with my boss that I arrive at work by 6:30 am, I can leave at 4:30 pm. You’d be surprised how 30 minutes can make a difference! It runs in my Dad’s family! It affected him, my brother and sister as well as several aunts and one uncle.
Judy Harper´s last blog ..LBC-Weather and Emotions
I am a transplant from Ks to Tx and what really amazes me is that there are no basements here! When a tornado levelled that town – Greenville, Ks – my friends here all asked me how it was that no one was killed! Apparently the soil is so clay-filled that basements are not stable! Of all the years I lived in Ks, I only dove to the basement twice – down here I think about it a lot! I wonder if being closer to the gulf makes our storms even more violent! Even our thunderstorms create awe!
e-motion; I love that! I bought the kids a little tornado maker some time ago-you can get them in science shops these days and I am constantly amazed by the tornado I can easily instil just by shaking it a bit. I also know people who do this or at least, have this kind of effect. Only once they remove themselves from the shaking, so to speak, are they allowed to settle and come back to a normal state.
Great post. x
Helen McGinn´s last blog ..Emotions, weather and soup
With my daughter, it is alloyed with her bipolar disorder. She is doing well, though and deals with the situation(s) strategically. But, it was one of the big plusses for her going to San Diego to go to school – lots of daylight!
And, Judy, I didn’t realize that distinction between the midwestern and the southern tornadoes. Fascinating!
Could be the relationship with the Gulf, Deb! Or it could be that Texas just has to have bigger and better everything! LOL
I would NOT want to live in tornado country without a basement! Even though I had a few places in my twenties that had none. Of course, I was invincible back then…
Helen, those little tornado makers are pretty cool!! I think you can get them in the gift shops at Kansas airports – along with all the T-Shirts playing off of the Dorothy and Good Witch / Bad Witch themes.
Your point about the removal from the shaking is an excellent insight and addition! It is so true. The only way I know of if you are still in the continuing maelstrom to settle is to be in the eye of the storm. Hmmm… I can almost smell THAT post cooking.
Grannymar, I swear that you have one of the most interesting places on Earth! I think that your rain is the price of being the Emerald Isle.
There I was totally fascinated by what actually causes tornadoes in the Tornado Alley part of our country, when you turn the whole explanation to life and our emotions. Wow! it was like riding a roller coaster as I realized how the two are so comparable.
As you know on the desert we have Dust Devils which are a little like baby tornadoes. Usually they cause no problems at all, but people usually stop and watch them as they make their way across the desert floor. However a few years ago, one of our most beloved citizens and the librarian in town, was riding her bike home from work one afternoon when she and the bike encounter a rather large Dust Devil. She was thrown from her bike and knocked unconscious for a moment or two. Passerbys called for an ambulance and as she gained consciousness, she smiled and said, “Gee, for a moment, I thought I was in Kansas.”
Small towns always have stories like this, but I bet they are bigger in Kansas.
At 1st I thought your calling was to be a physicist. Then you definitely turned into a weatherman. Added to that you became a psychologist or psychiatrist.
You are a Renaissance Man.
Conrad, drowning in the vast sea of your knowledge I feel like a drop evaporated before having had a chance to fulfill its destiny, ie hitting the ground.
If only our physics and geography teachers had had your touch maybe there wouldn’t have been so much jaw lock around during lesson time.
I am now in dire need of a rainbow. Not one of the consortium – or so I believe – has mentioned this most life enhancing giver of hope and happiness.
U
Thanks, Maria! Actually, like all places that this is the reality you are born with, the stories are kind of fewer. The tornadoes in Kansas kind of tend to wipe out so much, people are usually in basements.
I did sleep through one that took a tree out of our front yard once, though. Must have been small, the house was fine and houses across the street were fine. Sometimes they talk about “tornadic winds” out there.
Thanks, bhb. Renaissance Man or just confused.
Ursula, I am a former public school science teacher, LOL.
Conrad, Ireland is wonderful in a miniature kinda way!
I’ll be back….tomorrow.
There’s lots in here…so, I want to look at it with fresh eyes.
Well, you ended that in an amazing way. The post in general was going one way, and yes, I’m wondering where’s the emotional connection and then, it came out of the blue! You surprised me all right.
gaelikaa´s last blog ..An Alternative Profession
It will be waiting for you, Marianna!
gaelikaa, I figured that everyone wouldn’t see that coming, LOL.
Loved the meteorological lesson, Conrad.
Re.emotions. It’s true that the “blowing off of steam” does relieve the pressure. However, that “blowing” also causes a cascade of 1400 neuro-chemicals, which, if it happens often enough over time, resets our nervous system. Unless, we are able to acknowledge it and then transform it.
I was, what I would call a Stage 2 Road Rager…oh, I’d get angry at the traffic…until I learned that the driver you’re angry with rarely knows it and guess who is left to pay the price? I’m much better now, thank you very much.
The trick is in recognising that we have a choice in how we respond and then learn more appropriate and resourceful ways to deal with the anger.
I am in agreement, Marianna. Not always in practice – but I try.
I am going to do a post that will incorporate what you are talking about. I would only like to add here the old adage that “when anger is your main course, the skeleton left on the plate is your own!”
Same here.
That’s what it means to be human & not computer-like. We have foibles to overcome…horses to get back onto…and learning to do.
Never heard that one before re. the skeleton. I like it.
Yep. Human all too human.