The highstorm

[Oudeis]

So here's my theory. There's only one Highstorm.

It travels from east to west. It comes from over the sea, and disappears over the sea. No one ever sees it END.

In the story Wit told Kaladin, he spoke of the Wandersail, a ship that rode a highstorm out to a foreign land (which somehow spoke english but whatever). Then they rode a second highstorm back.

I think we've got ourselves a "christopher columbus" moment here. Without being able to travel to sea, I don't think people really get the idea that their world is a globe. Go far enough west, and you return from the east. (Though they do seem scientifically advanced in ways that surprise me sometimes, so maybe they've figured it out.)

I think the storm just keeps circling the planet. There is no Origin. It picks up energy over water, the way storms do on earth, then gets weaker as it goes over land. Then it hits water again, lather/rinse/repeat. Seasonal wind/current changes could account for the fact that they come on a rough schedule, but not "every three days". Some trick of Investiture is why it never really dies.

It'd be a Sanderson-esque trick if it turns out the True Desolation is the END of the highstorm. No more stormlight, which I think is more than just light for humans and power for shardplate. Greatshells all contain gemhearts, and they strive to pupate when the highstorm is near. I think stormlight DOES something for the planet, and Odium's (or the Voidbringers's) plan to destroy Roshar is to remove it. The highstorms, which everyone fears but unthinkingly counts on, ends up being a gift from good Shards (maybe Cultivation? This could be her watering her garden), and provides an apocalypse scenario the good guys can't just kill people to stop.

Edited March 16, 2014 by Outis

[Crysanja]

sounds interresting.

 

but i think the strom would need to be realy fast to reach most of the planet within a week.

 

the size of the storm would be very huge

think the storm is usualy longer then 2-3 hours -> so it would be realy large like a continent.

 

 

because of that i think its unlikely just one storm. maybe several permanent storms?

[Oudeis]

I can't get a very good reference but this says that a fast storm on earth can travel at 60 mph. Maybe faster over water?

 

The circumference of the Earth is 24,901 miles at the equator. (Again, anyone out there with a better means of checking the circumference at a temperate clime like Roshar, please feel free. Actually, does anyone know what it says about axial tilt that the seasons shuffle like a shell game?)

 

So it would take a normal thunderstorm on earth about 415 hours to circle the equator, or 17 days.

 

I'm going to assume that a Stormlight-charged highstorm can travel at 90mph, half-again as fast as an Earth thunderstorm. I'm also going to peg the typical frequency of a highstorm at 5 days, and see how small the circumference of the planet would have to be at tropical Roshar for the highstorm to make it around.

 

I get 10,800 miles.

 

(Sidebar, in my attempt to figure out the circumference of Earth at specific lattitudes, I just broke maps.google labs. Sorry.)

 

So... for my theory to work, it would help if I could get supporting evidence that highstorms ARE faster (at least over water) than Earth storms in Ohio. If not, then with the already-generous half-again estimate on speed, in five days a highstorm could make it around a circle whose radius is 1720 miles, approximately, so significantly less than half Earth's radius at the circumference. I know Roshar has lower gravity than Earth, so it's not wildly implausible to suggest that it might be smaller, but that seems much.

 

There are still ways to save my theory: meteorilogical data that storms move faster over water would be one, or some trigonometry (which I will do tomorrow, when I haven't just taken a sleeping pill) which might give me better numbers for earth's radius at a temperate clime, or an alternate path for the highstorms (they might swing off course and take a short cut past a pole). Or, the simplest, Crys's theory that there are two or three storms chasing each other around the ball.

 

LIES. I'm doing the math now. It'll be fun to wake up tomorrow and see how many mistakes I made.

 

I'm using Baltimore as an example of a city with moderate temperate climes. I would be tickled to have someone explain to me that there's a better lattitude to pick to be more Roshar-like. According to this, Balto is 2703 miles (4350km) away from the equator. The earth's meridionial circumference is 40,007.86km, so I'm going to imagine a half-circle (I realize the Earth is SIGNIFICANTLY off from perfectly round, but unless you can do it better, don't bother pointint out how wrong I am) that is 20,003.93km long, with two points, each 4350km from an end. According to my calculations, each point is about 28% of the distance along the whole arc. Since the whole arc has 180 degrees, that means it is 50.4 degrees. So the angle between my two points is 180 - 50.4 - 50.4, or 79.2 degrees.

 

So. We've got an isosceles triangle, the apex angle, and the length of the similar sides (I'm using earth radius, which I know will be too long, but again, please tell me how to find a better measurement from Balto to the spinning molten core of the Earth). If I remember my trig formulae correctly, the final side of the triangle (the line which connects Balto from its theoretical lattitudinal twin) should be Earth's radius * sin(theta/2).

 

And the answer is... about 4061km, which should be the diameter. The radius, half that, would be 2030.5km. Which is... something like a third the Earth's mean radius. That makes NO sense. There's a reason I don't do math for a living. Forget everything I've typed, I'm off to bed.

[Oudeis]

OKAY. Better numbers now.

 

Math available upon command, but the radius of the earth at a temperate lattitude like Balto is 4,951km, roughly.

 

I'm still waiting on my MUCH smarter friends to give me a good speed on storms, but for now I'm sticking with my half-again-as-fast speed of 90mph (or 145km/h).

 

Roshar's gravity is .7 Earth, and I honestly can't BEGIN to tell you what change the radius would have to go through to get 7/10th the mass. I assume it has something to do with "to the third power" and I welcome anyone to give me more specifics. I'll be back tomorrow to see if I can do it myself, but there are many people in this forum much smarter than I, so I hope to avail myself of them.

[Aethling]

Unfortunately storm speeds vary greatly.  Even a full blown hurricane can change speeds depending on the local water and wind conditions.  Living in a prime hurricane zone, I have seen storms do some crazy things.  One even did loops in the Gulf of Mexico for several days before making landfall.

 

It is probably something roughly like the big red spot toned down to a hyper-hurricane.

[Pechvarry]

It is probably something roughly like the big red spot toned down to a hyper-hurricane.

This is what I was thinking, as well. Jupiter and especially Neptune have large storms which have stayed strong for hundreds of years. Of course, those are gas giants. But Roshar has magic, so it should even out.

[Oudeis]

OKAY. Much more math. Available on demand, but I do not feel like typing every scrap out again unless someone actually cares.

 

I took the volume of the earth and WoB that Roshar's gravity is .7G. Without information on relative densities, the best I could do was assume similar density, and calculated the radius at Roshar's equator. Taking Baltimore as an idea of a temperate climate, I calculated that the radius of lattitude there is about 78% of the radius at earth's equator, so I figured the radius of temperate climes on Roshar would also be 78% of the radius at Roshar's equator. Using that I got the circumference, and officially half the info I need to see if a highstorm can circumnavigate the globe, using a TON of gross assumptions (the main one being, I treated both planets as spheres rather than geoids, because I'm not that smart and the math was hard enough as it was).

 

With the best information googling can provide me on the speed of a storm, and assuming a generous 50% increase in speed from Investiture, it would take a highstorm almost 8 days to circle the world, about a week-and-a-half on Roshar (which has five day weeks, see above link). So... a highstorm's speed over water would have to be more than double my already generous estimates for my idea to work.

 

Until and unless I hear some good news from the various calls I have out re: storm speeds in the specific, this is probably me giving up my theory.

[Moogle]

In reference to your quick math, I don't think it's a safe assumption to say that Roshar is necessarily a similar density to Earth. If Roshar is less dense than Earth, it can also be smaller while still having less gravity, which means that it is possible there might be one storm. And, of course, having less gravity is bound to change how fast a storm travels, though I am not quite up to date on my physics in that area.

 

That said, I don't think it's one storm. We've got quotes in the book saying that by the time the highstorm reaches Shinovar, it's basically just a rainstorm. I can't see it picking up power again once it reaches the western ocean. I suspect the Origin just releases a highstorm every few days, depending on some sort of formula based on sin waves. What it means for the Origin to release a highstorm, I have no clue. I suspect it's not 'natural' and has something to do with some Shard.

[Oudeis]

In reference to your quick math, I don't think it's a safe assumption to say that Roshar is necessarily a similar density to Earth.

 

by the time the highstorm reaches Shinovar, it's basically just a rainstorm. I can't see it picking up power again once it reaches the western ocean.

 

While I realize I can't safely assume density is the same, we've been given absolutely no valid reason to assume ... anything, really, about the density or volume of the planet. It feels like cheating to assume high enough density to shrink the planet, just to fit my theory, so I'm leaving it alone until I hear otherwise.

 

Minor point: Shinovar itself is protected from the worst of the highstorms by the mountains. I think it's been said that Aimia, which is even farther leeward, DOES get hit by highstorms, though your fundamental point that storms are weaker as they travel across Roshar remains valid.

 

About the storm gaining power over water... I mean, that's what real storms DO. They develop over water, then weaken as they cross land. In the relatively rare circumstance of a storm big enough to survive crosses a large island like Haiti/Dominican Republic, it will lose power over land, then pick up more when it gets back over water. Being so heavily Invested, highstorms could work differently, but until I see a reason to believe differently it's probably a safe baseline.

[Windrunner]

I don't recall any mention of how strong highstorms are in Aimia.

[Oudeis]

However, I've gotten confirmation from a meteorologist: The speed of storms on Earth is affected by winds in the upper atmosphere, meaning they do NOT travel any faster over water than over land. So, my theory is made out of nothing but holes.

 

I still say the circle that the world is explains the Wandersail.

 

Actually, there's something. The Wandersail left from the leeward coast of Roshar, and still got caught in a highstorm that was clearly more than the pitter-patter of rain. Granted it was a fable...

[Gloom]

The Wandersail is a funny story. It's a fable about a moment in Roshars history told by an extraterrestrial. Was Hoid even in Roshar then? Did the voyage even take place on Roshar? Was it just something he'd heard? Or was it just something he made up?

 

Irregardless of Highstorms, I believe Roshars seas would be very dangerous. We know they have sailing, I'm not sure how extensively they use it. The storms move east to west, and the sailing we've seen was to the south in the Tarat Sea, and I believe that we will see some type of boating industry in WoR in the Reshi Sea to the north. In TWoK Highstorms were definitely a concern in the Tarat Sea. If Kharbranth is concerned with them, the entire region would be affected. This doesn't even mention other creatures, Great Shells and the like that could hunt the seas and scuttle boats, or normal tidal problems that may crop up on a world with lower gravity and three moons.