Superstition and half-baked theory dominate the atmospheric sciences. Currently meteorological theories on atmospheric flow and storms maintain three superstitious and half-baked notions: 1) Convection. This is the superstition that evaporation makes air buoyant enough to power strong updrafts in the atmosphere (included in this is the strange belief that H2O in the atmosphere becomes gaseous at temperatures/pressures that have never been detected in a laboratory); 2) Dry layer capping. This is a superstition that imagines dry layers having structural properties that explain the how/why convection does not constantly produce storms and uplift; 3) Latent heat.  This is the superstition that phase changes from a gaseous phase of H2O (which are purported to exist despite never having been detected and being inconsistent with what is indicated in the H2O phase table) to a liquid phase releases "latent heat" which itself has never been confirmed/verified. 

In accordance with which, the current meteorological paradigm assumes hurricanes are caused by warm water. Actually the energy of hurricanes and all storms comes from jet streams and is delivered through vortices in the form of low pressure. Wind shear at low altitudes is the most important predictor of severe weather. This is because wind shear is the mechanism underlying growth of the vortices that are the transport mechanism of the low pressure energy. Warm moist air/water is not the source of the energy of storms, it's the target of vortice growth.

The 'Missing Link' of Meteorology's Theory of Storms

http://www.thunderbolts.info/forum/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=16329

James McGinn / Solving Tornadoes