Originally posted by Muaddib

The fair weather is when the charges in the atmosphere and the telluric currents travelling in the surface of the Earth are neutral and produce "fair weather".

So presumably over the UK for the past few weeks these currents have not been neutral - hence all the unsettled weather conditions we've had?

Nothing to do with a southward tracking jet stream at all? Or does this interaction between telluric currents and the solar wind also direct where the jet stream goes?

We've had plenty of thunderstorms of late. Although we get plenty of thunderstorms this time of year every year .... And to be fair it's mainly been unsettled due to the position of the jet.

Anyway, presumably the solar wind will affect all parts of the earth equally (or, at least, large regions of it).

So if there's a connection with thunderstorm activity, then the telluric currents must vary considerable over relatively small areas of the Earth's surface? (otherwise all areas for see the same upsurge or decline in TS activity at around the same time).

Unless, of course, thunderstorms are driven by heat difference between layers of the atmosphere and the ground surface, and neither the solar wind nor telluric currents have any significant effect on them?

I guess to prove one way or the other one would need to do a study (over several years) comparing thunderstorm activity (and particularly the frequency of +ve lightning) in a given region with the strength of the solar wind and local telluric currents.