KUSA — Large storms can create waves of energy called gravity waves. NASA scientists say they have found a new method to detect and map them.
In May 2013, a powerful tornado hit the Oklahoma City metro area, leaving catastrophic damage in Moore and killing 24 people.
The NASA Aqua satellite detected gravity waves using the AIRS (Atmospheric Infrared Sounder), 12 hours before the tornado struck, and even stronger waves on its next pass 11 hours later.
Think of gravity waves like the ripples in a pond after a stone is tossed in. On a much larger scale, the updraft of a storm is the stone that causes waves of energy.
These gravity waves are shown in a new simulation released by NASA’s Scientific Visualization Studio.
They move outward and upward from the storm system that caused the Moore tornado, and were detected thousands of miles away and as high as the stratosphere, 20 to 30 miles above the Earth.
They were even observed by GPS satellites in the Ionosphere 250 miles above the Earth, shown in greens and yellows in NASA’s simulation. Gravity waves are not visible to humans, but can be seen by infrared sensors.
Sometimes gravity waves can create clouds that are visible to people. For instance, some form here on the Colorado Front Range.
The mountains act as the disturbance in a stream of air moving from the west. This forces air up, creating waves downstream.
These waves can create very distinct wave clouds and rows of clouds.
The difference is that these gravity waves being studied by NASA is that they push out in the form of concentric rings in all directions from the source.
NASA scientists just published a paper saying they can now detect these gravity waves that occur in concentric rings in near real-time.
They created a ring detection algorithm using a combination of data from the NASA Aqua satellite, and the powerful ECMWF (European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts) weather computer model known simply as the European Model, that can identify these ring-shaped gravity waves.
This development might not increase the lead-time of tornado warnings, which the National Weather Service says is about 13 minutes from time of warning to the time of impact, but NASA says that understanding the spread of gravity waves will help the forecasting of events that cause violent tornadoes.