• After witnessing the continued decrease of involvement in the SpotterNetwork staff in serving SN members with troubleshooting issues recently, I have unilaterally decided to terminate the relationship between SpotterNetwork's support and Stormtrack. I have witnessed multiple users unable to receive support weeks after initiating help threads on the forum. I find this lack of response from SpotterNetwork officials disappointing and a failure to hold up their end of the agreement that was made years ago, before I took over management of this site. In my opinion, having Stormtrack users sit and wait for so long to receive help on SpotterNetwork issues on the Stormtrack forums reflects poorly not only on SpotterNetwork, but on Stormtrack and (by association) me as well. Since the issue has not been satisfactorily addressed, I no longer wish for the Stormtrack forum to be associated with SpotterNetwork.

    I apologize to those who continue to have issues with the service and continue to see their issues left unaddressed. Please understand that the connection between ST and SN was put in place long before I had any say over it. But now that I am the "captain of this ship," it is within my right (nay, duty) to make adjustments as I see necessary. Ending this relationship is such an adjustment.

    For those who continue to need help, I recommend navigating a web browswer to SpotterNetwork's About page, and seeking the individuals listed on that page for all further inquiries about SpotterNetwork.

    From this moment forward, the SpotterNetwork sub-forum has been hidden/deleted and there will be no assurance that any SpotterNetwork issues brought up in any of Stormtrack's other sub-forums will be addressed. Do not rely on Stormtrack for help with SpotterNetwork issues.

    Sincerely, Jeff D.

Monster Storm (Thunderheads?) On Saturn-New

Good day all,

Below is an image of this thing ... Bigger than the earth!

cassini_storm_dec2010_blue.jpg


Our atmosphere is mysterious enough, let alone a gas-giant planet which is essentially all (or 99%) atmosphere!

It appears much more than meets the eye is going on far below the clouds, as the storm appears to be basically like an "overshooting" top of something from the deep atmosphere that just happened to well-up high enough to be seen.

Note the eddy "trail" as well, as the upward motion invades the strong wind belts above it!
 
I read that the rounded area is 3600 miles across, which makes it half the earth's size. But the tail feature is tens of thousands of miles in length. As i said in the blog posting on the site, any lightning in this storm could easily incinerate a city! Imagine flying alongside this monster, just under the anvil portion-a giant dark mountain range of roiling clouds, glowing from within with continuous, massive lightning strikes. It would be the most terrifying, awe-inspiring thing ANY of us would ever witness.
 
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Our atmosphere is mysterious enough, let alone a gas-giant planet which is essentially all (or 99%) atmosphere!

At a certain point below the clouds, the pressures grow to millions of Earth atmospheres, and the heat grows to thousands of degrees. The atmosphere changes into a giant ocean of liquid hydrogen. It's this hell beneath the clouds that's fueling Saturn's ferocious weather.
 
The gas planets generate almost all of their heat energy from within and receive very little from the sun due to the distance involved.
It's hard to imagine the energy that would be necessary to generate an updraft capable of "breaking the cap" against such massive forces.
 
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