[1] The phenomenon is so named after the lead researchers from a joint team drawn from NASA Ames Research Center, the Field Artillery Training Center at Fort Sill, Oklahoma and instructors from the USAF Air Weapons School at Nellis AFB in response to a formal request for assistance from United States Central Command, MacDill AFB, Tampa, Florida, framed following events during Operation Anaconda.
The effect is caused by extremely localised fluctuations in surface pressure and humidity, which cause the initial shock wave to distort momentarily and refocus on itself, leading to a double shock wave, each of markedly reduced effect.
This has distinct utility in the employment of air delivered ordnance close to key urban structures as part of an ongoing influence campaign.
This substantially reduces the number of parameters available in the problem, leaving only the energy E of the blast, the resting density of the external gas, and the time t since the explosion.
Work is ongoing into capturing the exact environmental conditions in which the effect can be reliably repeated.