[thedoc (OP)]

Nadia Adam  asked the Naked Scientists:
   
Hello  After earthquake in some areas, rain and snowfall starts.My question is, does this condition  have some relation with earthquake like some kind of syphon or low atmospheric pressure maybe created and clouds are drawn towards earthquake  affected area. Thanks

What do you think?

[evan_au]

After earthquake in some areas, rain and snowfall starts.

I would add: After no earthquake in some areas, rain and snowfall starts.

To show a causal link, you need to show that the rain and snow is more likely on days near an earthquake than it is on days not near an earthquake (eg the previous week, or the same day in other years).

Or perhaps rain & snow is just more noticeable after an earthquake? When it rains or snows, we automatically retreat indoors. If our house has just been demolished by an earthquake, there is nowhere to go, and that is much beloved by the media.

[puppypower]

One possible way is connected to the sliding and collision of the crust a plate boundaries. If the crust is sliding, the breech means a gap in the crust, where heat from the mantle has a way to reach the surface. Many mountain ranges form by plates colliding and lifting the crust upward, bringing mantle material is closer to the surface.

Hypothetically, say the mantle heat was being release in to the ocean due to a breech in the crust/mantle interface, we would see zonal heating in the ocean. Whereas global warming due to CO2 would expect to cause a more integrated heating affect, due to the movement of the atmosphere.

[Craig W. Thomson]

Nadia Adam  asked the Naked Scientists:
   Hello  After earthquake in some areas, rain and snowfall starts.My question is, does this condition  have some relation with earthquake like some kind of syphon or low atmospheric pressure maybe created and clouds are drawn towards earthquake  affected area. Thanks

   

What do you think?

An earthquake is a wave. That wave does indeed travel through the atmosphere -- it's the sound you hear when there's an earthquake. That sound wave passes right through the air and clouds without affecting the weather. Otherwise, the so-called Native American "rain dance" might actually work.

[puppypower]

The earthquake itself will not impact weather, but if you trace the earth quake back to original  causes, such as continental drift, plate boundaries and breeches in the earth's crust, especially deep in the oceans, where the crust is thinner, the result can be mantle heat being released into the oceans. This can cause El Nino climate change.

Compare these two pictures; The first shows the crustal plates boundaries and the second has to do with El Nino style, warm water pockets. These warm water pockets can cause the earth's  temperature to rise, and they can alter ocean currents and weather patterns.

html]http://www.livescience.com/1312-huge-ocean-discovered-earth.html[/url]

[jhon15]

 Earthquakes are part of the environment. They are a result of forces within the earth that push and pull tectonic. When a warm front overtakes a cold front it usually gently goes up over it and causes widespread rain, usually not violent storms.There are bad effects of EARTHQUAKES like it causes the rising of huge sea or ocean waves.this my disturb the total quilibrium state of earth.some times sea level may raise du to earthquake . anyway the environmental problem is very much.

[Craig W. Thomson]

When a warm front overtakes a cold front it usually gently goes up over it and causes widespread rain, usually not violent storms.

Not sure how you came to that conclusion.

Actually, how weather works is that different parts of the surface of the earth and the atmosphere get warm unevenly and subsequently carry different amounts of water vapor. The dissipation of that energy and mass difference is what fuels weather.

When Canadian air goes up over the Rockies, snowfall takes all the moisture out of the air. So, it is very cold and dry. Meanwhile, hot, humid air is moving the other direction, coming in from the Gulf of Mexico. That makes for a huge energy differential. What results is powerful storms.

The greater the difference between the air masses, the stronger the weather. If there's light rain, that means there's less energy to dissipate, the condensation is likely being produced by more similar air masses, as in the case of your warm front sliding peacefully over the cooler air mass.

You can actually see air masses begin to collide a couple of days before a big storm. Air masses move a lot like sound waves. It's a compression wave, as in, air molecules get pushed by the ones behind them, so they push the ones in front of them.

http://pondscienceinstitute.on-rev.com/imagesCOS/compress_wave.jpeg

A couple of days before a good storm, you often see interference patterns in the clouds as these compression waves begin to interact, regular, orderly rows of clouds produced by little pockets of cooler, drier air interacting with slightly warmer, more humid air far out ahead of the advancing storm front where the clash is less violent:

https://socalskywatch.files.wordpress.com/2011/03/933sandiego03012011.jpg

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_UENyyV92WPI/THIk4IxF55I/AAAAAAAAAPc/pMUOM2Ebmqs/s1600/Wave+clouds+Interference+Pattern+29July2010+MacRitcie.jpg

[Colin2B]

  When a warm front overtakes a cold front it usually gently goes up over it and causes widespread rain,

I thought it was when cold front overtakes warm to form either a warm or cold occlusion.
How do earthquakes affect this?

[chris]

This news item on toads predicting earthquakes was published in 2010.

One theory put forward by the researchers is that ahead of an earthquake there might be subtle alterations to the planet's magnetosphere, which may in turn affect cloud cover or other weather manifestations.

I think the evidence for such an effect is scant, but I thought it was germane to this discussion to highlight this paper.

[Craig W. Thomson]

This news item on toads predicting earthquakes was published in 2010.

One theory put forward by the researchers is that ahead of an earthquake there might be subtle alterations to the planet's magnetosphere, which may in turn affect cloud cover or other weather manifestations.

I think the evidence for such an effect is scant, but I thought it was germane to this discussion to highlight this paper.

Hmmm... I was in a bad accident in 1993. My shoulder always has a dull ache, but it becomes more pronounced when there's bad weather on the way. I think, but am far from sure, that this might have something to do with lightning strikes associated with the storm front affecting the magnetosphere. There is anecdotal evidence that some animals can sense an earthquake coming, which is interesting considering your comment and the behavior of my injury.

Thanks for the frog post. I'd never heard of that one.