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Comment by James McGinn:
Does the computer model get us closer to solving the mystery or does it just look cool? I think it's the latter. It is unlikely a computer simulation will tell us anything useful (GIGO). Currently the stated role of water in storms involves traditional notions that have never been verified empirically. James McGinn of Solving Tornadoes says that this traditional model is mistaken. The correct role of water in storms involves the surface tension properties of H2O being amplified as a consequence of factors on moist/dry wind shear boundaries. This is interesting for a number of reasons. Primarily, it has long been observed that tornadogenesis has been associated with wind shear, ie. winds aloft. But nobody knows why. McGinn says it is because wind shear causes the emergence of a plasma phase of H2O that is the result of amplification of H2O surface tension. The plasma serves as the basis of the structural; properties of a vortice, allowing it to function as a conduit for flow, bridging between warm, moist air at low altitude and high energy cold, dry air at the top of the troposphere (ie. jet streams). Incidently, this also serves the solve the mystery as to how the jet streams maintain their momentum--a question that meteorology has all but given up on.