Talk:Tornado/Archive 2

This is an archive of past discussions about Tornado. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

Archive 1

Archive 2

Archive 3

Archive 4

Archive 5

Spelling of the plural form

Standardization on one form of the plural in this article would help. It's spelled variously tornados and tornadoes now.

Fixed (...for now).

Supersonic

In the article it is mentioned that some computer models predict winds that could be considered supersonic. However, it is my understanding that fluids (ie air) cannot flow faster than the speed of sound due to a pressure gradient. See Compressible_flow. I know for instance NASCAR engineers found that they were fundamentally limited in the amount of air they could draw when the channel was restricted (in cross section) by the speed of sound. It's in essence impossible for the information of the low to propogate faster than the speed of sound, and thus induce supersonic winds, even if if were meteorologically possible to produce a low that otherwise could.

I'm not so much concerned for correcting the article (the models have very well predicted those results - perhaps not taking into account compressibility effects near supersonic speeds) but I'm more concerned as to whether or not it is possible, as a weather geek. --JimboOmega 14:56, 6 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Actually, supersonic flow in open atmosphere is possible, when the gradient conditions are met in a fluid to allow it to happen. However, the probability for it to happen on Earth, short of a meteor impact, is extremely small (nil). Simply, the large reason for the low probability would have to do with the limits of the atmosphere itself. Hence, the latest speed limit on tornadoes is posted as 318mph. ;) Hard Raspy Sci 05:42, 7 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Right...don't forget that the speed of sound in a body of air must be calculated relative to the (average) velocity of the air itself, not necessarily with respect to the ground. For example, if the speed of sound is 600mph, and the air is moving uniformly westward at 200mph with respect to the ground, then a west-moving sound wave will travel at 800mph with respect to the ground. -- Beland 23:31, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

But there are differences between laminar flow and impulse flow. Hard Raspy Sci 05:07, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

Be wary of statistics

From this article as of 06:35, 12 Feb 2005 (UTC):

The United States experiences by far the most tornadoes of any country, and has also suffered the most intense ones. However, tornadoes do occur throughout the world; the most tornado-prone region of the world, as measured by number of tornadoes per unit area, is the United Kingdom, especially England

Really, the US observes the most activity. It wasn't until the late 1980's that the exponential growth of observed tornadoes began to slow. This artifact is due to the improved radar system and large number of trained spotters available in the US. Does this mean a large percentage of the rest of the world doesn't realize what is happening around them? --Possibly yes...

Secondly, I can pick several regions within the US, that are the size of England, and that have higher concentration of tornadic events (reported).

But to slap your senses with Catch-22, my second point could theoretically invalidate my first point...or is it the other way around... hehe --Hard Raspy Sci 06:35, 12 Feb 2005 (UTC)

It's unclear whether the statistics being referred to are counting land area as an entire country, or if they are looking at individual square miles and saying that the particular plots of land that have the most frequent tornadoes are in the UK/US? There is no source given for these statistics; that would be helpful in making the article more accurate. -- Beland 00:10, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

Fujita first made the comment in the early 1970s. The reference is to the entire land area of the countries and using a very long-term average for the US tornado numbers. The US, including Alaska, which has very few tornadoes, is a little more than 40 times as large as the UK. Currently the US reports approximately 1200 tornadoes per year. Fujita made his original remark when the US reports were approximately 800. For the UK to have an equivalent tornado/area value, there would need to be about 30 reports per year, as opposed to 20 in the early 1970s view. If you exclude Alaska, the UK would need about 36 reports per year, a little more than the current estimate of 33.

The increase in US reports began in the 1950s when forecasting of tornadoes began. The increase has been in the weak tornadoes. The intensity distributions of tornadoes in most locations is about the same once you look beyond the weak tornadoes. See a comparison of distributions in a variety of places, formally in Brooks et al. 2001, further developed in the formal literature by Dotzek et al. 2003 and Feuerstein et al. 2005-- Hebrooks87 10:48, 17 December 2005 (UTC)

Surely, the United States experiences the largest absolute number of tornadoes per year, but I doubt that it suffered really the most intense ones. It is true that the highest windspeed close to ground ever measured was derived from doppler radar data of the Bridge Creek Tornado May 5th 1999. The windspeed corresponds to the upper F5 range of the Fujita scale with some probability (including the observational error) being even of F6 intensity. Nevertheless, F5 tornadoes occured also in other regions worldwide (see. e.g. [1]) and it there is no principle reason why they should have been significantly less intense than those in the United States. The main difference is the frequency of occurence. Whereas in the US one expects about one F5 event per year (on average) in other regions recurrence time may be decades or even centuries. Feldfrei 19:37, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

That is about right. The distributions are remarkably similar worldwide. It's just the case that since there are so many more tornadoes in total in the US that the large events will occur in smaller recurrence intervals. The vast majority of tornadoes in the US are weak just as they are everywhere, similarily, there are relatively few intense tornadoes in the US just as there are anywhere. Evolauxia 12:26, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

Comments on Tornado Characteristics

The article introduces the terms F0, F1, etc, without first mentioning what the terms mean, or even talking about the Fujita scale. The Fujita scale is only mentioned in passing at the end of the section.

Fixed. -- Beland 23:01, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

Tornadoes vs. other meteorological vortices

There is disagreement on whether a waterspout is a tornado. One source, the National Weather Service FAQ on Tornadoes at [2] states that a waterspout is a tornado. Other users have consistently provided text that states a waterspout is not a tornado, however, no sources were cited. Would appreciate any authoritative comments and/or references in order to avoid a revert war.

Whichever is correct, Wikipedia:Verifiability policy requires that references be listed.

I have never seen any authoritative source state that a waterspout is not a tornado. I'm tempted to revert the whole article back to before that stuff was introduced. -- Cyrius|✎

I 100% agree with Cyrius and think both this article, and the waterspout article should be reverted. From my sources, even though waterspouts are very different in structure to classic tornadoes, they are still tornadoes.

In the UK, half the tornadoes that occur are non-supercell tornadoes, or what some people call landspouts. They're structured very like waterspouts, but they are still called tornadoes. A question for those people that argue waterspouts are not tornadoes; surely you should also be arguing that most tornadoes in the UK are not tornadoes at all?

http://www.torro.org.uk - --Weirdgeordie 15:09, 21 November 2005 (UTC)

Waterspouts most certainly are tornadoes, as they're a violently rotating column of air in contact with the surface and a cumuliform cloud. Most waterspouts do form from a different process (somewhat analogous to landspouts) than supercell tornadoes (classic kind), though some are supercell tornadoes. For authoritative, sourcing, the Glossary of Meteorology (American Meteorological Society, 2000):

waterspout—1. In general, any tornado over a body of water. 2. In its most common form, a nonsupercell tornado over water.

Such events consist of an intense columnar vortex (usually containing a funnel cloud) that occurs over a body of water and is connected to a cumuliform cloud. Waterspouts exhibit a five- stage, discrete life cycle observable from aircraft: 1) dark-spot stage; 2) spiral pattern stage; 3) spray-ring stage; 4) mature or spray-vortex stage; and 5) decay stage. Waterspouts occur most frequently in the subtropics during the warm season; more are reported in the lower Florida Keys than in any other place in the world. Funnel diameters range from a few up to 100 m or more; lifetimes average 5–10 minutes, but large waterspouts can persist for up to one hour.

Evolauxia 05:26, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

How do tornadoes actually form?!

A rather glaring omission from the article! If I knew, I'd add it, but that's what I was looking for when I came here... Dan100 18:40, May 5, 2005 (UTC)

I know there is the line "They are believed to be produced when cool air overrides a layer of warm air, forcing the warm air to rise rapidly", but how does that result in the rapidly spinning columns we see? Dan100 18:42, May 5, 2005 (UTC)

Well, the "Tornado formation" section seems to have grown considerably, but it could still definitely use a diagram to help explain things. I'm not sure how vertical wind shear can really translate into horizontal rotation. -- Beland 23:46, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

I wouldn't expect to see a real answer anytime soon, I know for a fact an autoritative version does not exist, and won't for a while. Why? Call your congressman for that answer. - Hard Raspy Sci 05:22, 11 December 2005 (UTC)

Here, here. I am very interested in the details of tornado formation. A series of diagrams that spell out the stages of tornado formation and death would be very welcome. Rick Smith

Actually, all that is needed to form any cyclonic action is a strong updraft. As air rushes in from the area around the updraft to resupply the air that is drawn upward, it is like the vortex that forms in a bathtub drain, only upside down, where gravity corresponds to the updraft. Something starts the rotation--it could be the rotation of the earth, or an incidental wind. The air rushing in trys to join the updraft but is deflected by the rotating air which starts to form a barrier in the form of a cylindrical air curtain closest to the region of the most intense negative pressure--that is, nearest the cloud. The dimensions of this cylinder are determined by the balance of the low air pressure within and the centrifugal force of the rotating air. The principal way for the fresh air to enter the column now is to circle around and down towards the end of the column nearest the earth. As the air circles and gets closer to the entrance, the speed of rotation of the funnel is actually increased by the preservation of the angular momentum of the air that is rushing in--in a tighter and tighter circle. This is like the increased rotation of a dancer or a skater as they draw their arms and legs closer to their bodies. Thus the funnel is self perpetuating: as the rotation gets more intense, the rotating, cylindrical air curtain gets more difficult for the incoming air to penetrate, the incoming air is forced down lower and the funnel grows toward the earth and rotates more and more rapidly. If nothing else upsets this balance it only ends when the updraft exhausts itself. Valez2 Feb. 2,2006

What you appear to be describing here is the so-called "dynamic pipe effect", which results when an intense vertical vortex forms aloft, and rotation continually develops downward due to enhanced radial convergence and associated conservation of angular momentum immediately below the balanced part of the vortex (the balance here is "cyclostrophic balance", which is between the pressure gradient force acting inward, and the centrifugal force acting outward). This process continues until the balanced vortex extends all the way to ground level. However, no downward deflecting of actual air parcels need occur with this process, as you are suggesting. Only the properties of the rotating fluid move downward in this process, not the fluid itself. In fact, the air entering the tornado is actually rising during the whole time the vortex is extending downward. This can occur because a vortex (and by extension, a tornado) is not a material object, but rather a property of a material object, in this case the air.

While this process has been proposed for many years as one of the foremost explanations of tornadogenesis, recent high-resolution mobile Doppler radar observations have shown that many tornadoes in fact appear to form from the ground up, or a combined ground-up/top-down process, and thus that tornado formation may in fact be much more complicated than any of these relatively simple explanations may suggest. At least you didn't trod out that tired "cold air crashing into warm air creates tornado" explanation ;)Wthrman13 03:57, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

Finally an answer that make sense, well, common sense. Many many years ago I was watching water drain down the sink and, as a young child, assumed that this little "sink tornado" was just a smaller version of the big ones. Why not? Does not air behave as a fluid? Can large masses of cold air be pushed ontop of large hot air masses during storm season? The cold air wants to get down to earth, while at the same time, the hot air wants to get above the cool air. Could there be a sudden "breach" in the surface tension (probably loosly defined) between the two air masses and then bam, draino. Either the cool is draining down or the hot is draining up, or both, until a point of "equalization" is reached. Don't bathroom sinks drain in different rotations depending on their local as to the equator, just like tornadoes? Anyway, I am no professional, this has been my personal belief on the subject for decades, and I was just wondering why I never hear it mentioned an any of the tornado shows on the various learning/educational T.V. programs. Davampton March 28, 2006.

See transcript of Hunt for the Supertwister, http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/transcripts/3107_tornado.html . Timothy Clemans 18:37, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

One should always keep in mind that all these are rough outlines of how tornadoes might form. In reality, even the most experienced meteorologists have no idea how a rotating, miles wide thunderstorm in the atmosphere produces a small, mile-wide or less violently rotating column of air, nevermind how such a storm could produce several tornadoes at once. Runningonbrains 21:57, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

TORRO scale

The intensity of tornadoes is given by the Fujita-Pearson Tornado Scale. The news of the Birmingham tornado quoted the tornado as having "either a T3 or T4 rating". It seems this is the TORRO scale - is this used outside of the UK? Zoganes 12:08, July 29, 2005 (UTC)

Not really. I've seen UK tornadoes with F-scale rating as well.

Torro-scale is mostly used by scientific community in Europe. It has the advantage that it is directly compatible with Bofors scale, but in practice exact classification with T-scale may often be difficult, because direct wind readings are almost never available and damage reports are not really exact science. In public awareness, F-scale is vastly more estabilished, even in Europe.

I think that the main article should put bit more attention to tornadoes in Europe, which are more common there than most people realize. It has been estimated that about 700 tornadoes are detected annually in Europe. In many European countries, tornado goes by the name tromb(e)...this might warrant a mention too. --Mikoyan21 13:03, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

The F-scale is more established in Europe, even in the scientific community. Looking at the papers in the first three European Conferences on Severe Storms makes that clear. The scales, in the original designs(Fujita, T. T., 1971:Proposed characterization of tornadoes and hurricanes by area and intensity. SMRP Res. Paper 97, Univ. of Chicago, 42 pp. and Meaden, G. T., 1976: Tornadoes in Britain: Their intensities and distribution in space and time. J. Meteor., U.K., 1, 242-251.), are the same in their intent, construction, and use, except for constants. Velocity in the F-scale is given by V = 6.30(F + 2)^1.5 and in the T-scale as V = 2.365 (T+4)^1.5, where V is the velocity in meters per second. Both scales, in operational practice, depend almost entire on damage assessment, although assessors will use wind information when available (e.g., the Vera, Texas tornado on 13 May 2005).

Although the defintions of the F and T scale differ in detail, roughly two T classes correspond to one F class. Thus, in practice, taking into account the difficulties in estimating the wind speed it is a good approximation to consider the T scale being twice as fine as the F scale; i.e. an T4 tornado would be a weaker F2 (one could assign as F2-) and a T5 tornado a stronger F2 (assigend as F2+). A detailed description of the F and T scale for typical damage in Europe is given here: http://www.tordach.org/topics/intensity_en.htm Feldfrei 11:41, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

In comparing the US and European tornado numbers, it's important to note that, even though waterspouts are tornadoes, the US does not include waterspouts in its count of tornadoes. The recent estimate of tornado occurrence in Europe referred to is from Dotzek 2003. The 700 number includes waterspouts. Without waterspouts, the estimate is 300 per year.--Hebrooks87 10:48, 17 December 2005 (UTC)

Its somewhat difficult figuring on paper between dust-devil, tornado, water spout, and land spout. They are all vortices. But what distinguishes them is based on how they form or where they form. Tornadoes are by definition the fiercest potentially due to their connection with supercell T-storms. But, this may be an area for more definition and study. - Hard Raspy Sci 05:20, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

The difference between tornadoes, waterspouts and landspouts on the one hand and dust devils on the other hand is their convective nature. Dust devils occur in unstable air close to the surface under fair weather conditions where superadiabatic heating of the air leads to dry adiabatic convection which is usually quite shallow. In contrast, tornadoes need deep moist convection, where the release of latent heat delivers the energy to form the storm. Thus, tornadoes are always connected to cumulus or cumulonimbus clouds. The general term "tornado" comprises all vertical vortices in contact with the ground under deep moist convection. This includes tornadoes in the strict sense as well as waterspouts and landspouts. The former occur over land and are associated with a mesocyclone in the updraft of the convective cloud (supercell) whereas the latter are not associated with a mesocyclone and form either over land or water. There are also mesocyclonic tornadoes over water, but they are usually also called waterspouts. This terminology is also discussed here: http://www.tordach.org/topics/tornadodef_en.htm Feldfrei 11:41, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

I'm deleting the phrase "while it is helpful for statistical purposes to have more levels of tornado strength." For many, if not most, statistical purposes, it's actually harmful to have more categories. It's a question of sample size.Hebrooks87 17:59, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

Etymology

English words of Spanish origin says that it comes from tronada. --Error 02:53, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

large scale removal of text

Some of the editors here must be very good or something, anonymous users can remove large scale amounts of text and no one notices? -- Natalinasmpf 17:25, 26 December 2005 (UTC)

Thank you, Nat, we were at the Tornado editors vacation barbeque. Weren't you invited? We proposed a whole lot of toasts and vow not to edit for an undisclosed amount of time. - Hard Raspy Sci 05:11, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

U.K. as most tornadoes per area

It is now clearly documented in the scientific literature, such as in the works cited above by Hebrooks87, that the Netherlands actually has the most tornadoes per unit area. The Netherlands currently reports 20 tornadoes per year (estimated total with unreported events is 35) with an area of 41,526 km² and the U.K. reports 33 and estimates 50 with an area of 244,820 km² (see Table 1 for an example). The U.K. is approximately 6x the area of the Netherlands yet only has 1.65x the number of tornadoes, there are more tornadoes per km² in the Netherlands by circa factor 4. That is only including tornadoes over land, Netherlands reports 60 (est. 100) waterspouts per year to the U.K.'s 15 (est. 30).

I haven't yet changed it in the article as I anticipate resistance, but the data is very clear. The U.K. and Europe data the old claim is made on is old. The Netherlands does also have several strong tornadoes per decade. Data for Europe should further improve dramatically in coming years. Evolauxia 17:36, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

The thing is, countries other than US do not (yet) have similar "tornado culture", quite understandably but it has tended to lead to underreporting of tornadoes in many countries and to myth that "tornadoes only happen in USA". The movie "Twister" actually had great impact to interest towards tornadoes, at least in Finland, and now they are actually getting over-reported and quite often damage done by downbursts or some other similar phenomena are classed as "trombi (tornado) damage" by media...--Mikoyan21 19:12, 2 May 2006 (UTC)

The "tornado culture" will probably never develop to that of the Great Plains, Midwest, and Southeastern United States, however, there are great strides being made (in progress in early stages) in research, prediction efforts, and spotting networks, so a better climatology and hopefully awareness should be coming. As for overreporting now and downbursts, that is interesting. I assume that is only the media and general populace attributing downbursts as tornadoes. I know that the scienitific climatology efforts try to include only verified tornadic events as tornadoes. FWIW, Finland reports approximately 5 tornades per year on average, with the estimated total including missed events being 10 (that's over land, with 5 and 10 again over water). Evolauxia 12:16, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

The UK is said to have the most tornadoes per area in the article again. The data I've discussed is standardized (for definition and such) and the European tornado climatology research uses the same TORRO data that is used to make the UK assertion. The cited TORRO source precedes the research Hebrooks87 cited. New confirming research is available too. TORRO and some in the UK may be resistant to "giving up the title" to the Netherlands. Evolauxia 12:16, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

Stopping a Twister

This is vandalism. 205.188.116.65 01:36, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

No it isn't. It's just not a apropriate subject to address in this article at the momment since there is no way to modify weather currently. Lengis 05:05, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

It was vandalism. The user removed a large amount of good text without citing a reason, then inserted false, unreferenced information in its place. This is the definition of vandalism. -Runningonbrains 05:17, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

Oldest

I dont know about that oldest photo. Looks like a crayon drawing to me. Anyone agree? Disagree? Cyclone1 14:15, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure, but the Grazulis book carries a 26 April 1884 picture from Garnett, Kansas taken by A. A. Adams, as the earliest tornado photograph, about 5 months before the South Dakota image. Its not clear why the South Dakota one ever got the listing of "first." The tornado in the South Dakota image looks fine, but the structure above the tornado is a little odd.--Hebrooks87

I've always thought that it looked odd as well. And yes, Significant Tornadoes lists an earlier event. I'm sure editors here got the idea that it was first (legitimacy issues aside) from the NOAA Photo Library where the photo was obtained: http://www.photolib.noaa.gov/historic/nws/wea00206.htm . Evolauxia 01:18, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

I recently stumbled onto early questions about the photograph's authenticity. From a letter to the editor of Science in 1885 (Vol. 5, No. 110, p. 208)-

"A photograph of the Dakota tornado, a woodcut of which appeared in No. 107, Science, was submitted to me last November, when the question of admitting it in the New-Orleans exposition free of charge for space, was under discussion. The sharpness of outline, and the fact that it was claimed that the photograph was taken at a distance of twenty-six miles, made me doubt its genuineness so much, that I submitted it to two of the best out-door photographers connected with the government surveys. Both pronounced it a manufactured photograph, most probably taken from a crayon-drawing. J. W. GORE Chapel Hill, N. C., Feb. 26"--Hebrooks87

The South Dakota image is definitely questionable. The base seems extremely sharp for such a strong storm (an F4 with satellite vorticies would more than likely have a more pronounced lowering) as well as the odd shaped debris fan which dwindles as it gets closer to the tornado. The Kansas picture seems to be the best candidate for first tornado picture ever. It can be seen here: http://www.tornadochaser.com/photo/anderson1884.gif - dmitch86 AT gmail dot com

Depending on the conditions during the photography (Perhaps it was rainy or windy or whatnot) it could have messed with the camera used. Not to mention the lighting might be a bit odd due to the fact of the supercell's size and proximity to the photograph. And mind you that the photograph was taken in 1884, between 1884 and 2006 i'm pretty sure that something has "ruined" the photograph in some way (perhaps part of the photograph had gotten wet). Not to mention that the tornado's strength claimed could have been wrong. Truth be told, we probably won't know what exactly was the first picture of a tornado or the oldest surviving tornado picture (because there are probably some in someone's attic or in some storage closet somewhere, not to mention earlier photographs may have been destroyed due to fires and such.) There's just too many unknowns and variables to have a precise and accuate claim on which is the oldest surviving photograph of a tornado. - Tornado

form live

http://www.channeloklahoma.com/video/8150266/index.html

Tornado vs Cyclone : remember global perspective

On 13 May, I edited the paragraph that said "Cyclone is also another term for a tornado", and replaced it with, "A tornado can also be described as a cyclone" (and also made other changes to the same paragraph). My version is more accurate, but user Runningonbrains has now decided to change it back. My version isn't perfect, but it's definitely the more accurate of the two. Cyclone is definitely not another word for tornado. Maybe it's used that way in America, but this is Wikipedia, where we're supposed to write articles with global perspective. After I finished writing this comment, I'm going to try to fix it. Zerrakhi 17:42, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

I did not change your words...I only moved them to the "Definitions" section. Feel free to edit anything that you feel is non factual. Runningonbrains 01:26, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

After actually going back and looking at previous versions, it turns out I did delete your reference to cyclones. Your version is more correct, but I feel it unnecessary to even include the reference. Let me know if you feel otherwise. Runningonbrains 02:11, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

I agree that the reference isn't important. However, in See also, I have removed tropical cyclone and replaced it with cyclone. I'm also removing thunderstorm. Zerrakhi 06:41, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

I'm fairly certain that cyclones and tornadoes are totally different, though a cyclonic thunderstorm can cause tornadoes. (refer to P.313 of Natural Disasters, 5th ed. by Patrick L. Abbott. ISBN=0-07-304077-0) As well, can someone verify whether the storm thing in Oz was a tornado, or a cyclone. Cyclone has the same image, but says it is a cyclone in the movie. It can only be one folks!

What we're saying is that a tornado is a type of cyclone as we define it now...however, an old term for what we now call a tornado was once primarily called a "cyclone", as in the Wizard of Oz movie. It's just like calling a tornado a twister, only cyclone means something totally different these days.

Characteristics

This section needs a major copyedit, in order to omit redundant information, add important information, add references, and improve overall organization. I will be working on this over the next few days, I ask anyone who wants to contribute to work on this section. Runningonbrains 14:41, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

I've just about completed this section...I'd like someone to expand the Prediction and Detection and Climatology sections, and possibly split the Climatology category into sub-categories (for example, Frequency of occurence, geography, trends, etc.)Runningonbrains 05:48, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

Intensity and Damage

Apparently administrators overlooked some gross deletion vandalism by User:206.162.182.35, who seems to have been making a habit of random vandalism. I have re-inserted the deleted section.

Question about Tornadoes

Is there any correlation between the typical Tornado shapes(cone, stovepipe, elephant trunk, wedge etc.) and tornado intensity? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.62.140.23 (talk • contribs)

This is a difficult question to answer. I am not aware of any official studies done on this subject, so take anything I say with a grain of salt. Typically, multi-vortex tornadoes, regardless of shape, tend to be stronger than single-vortex tornadoes. From what I have heard, wedge tornadoes are most often multi-vortex in nature, and most often violent. However, all other shapes have the capability to be violent. While a rope tornado is often in its dissipating stage and therefore weaker, some tornadoes actually widen as they weaken, or do not change in size but simply lift up into the ground, or even vanish in seconds.

As a general statement, the wider the tornado, the stronger it is...however, this rule is by no means law--it is meant to be broken. Regardless, civilians should never attempt to determine the strength of a tornado in making a decision whether or not to take shelter: even an F0 tornado can kill. Runningonbrains 22:03, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

Tornado damage with respect to skyscapers

Just out of curiousity, would an average tornado (say F2/F3) going through a CBD of a largish city flatten skyscrapers, or would they remain standing, albeit with major damage? I've tried to do some research, but I can't find any instances of tornadoes actually going through the CBD of any city. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.158.47.177 (talk • contribs)

actually, there have been several instances of tornadoes directly impacting skyscrapers, with two especially noticable cases. The Fort Worth tornado of March 2000 was a high-end f-2 when it impacted the skyscrapers seen in the photos seen on that page. However, in 1970 the Great Plains Life Building in Lubbock TX, a 20-foot tall skyscraper, was hit by an F5 tornado. The steel structure of the building was deformed, but repairs were made, and the building still stands today. It is unlikely that any tornado on this planet could even partially destroy a skyscraper. However, if such a storm were to occur during the middle of a work day in a modern city, undoubtedly hundreds, or even thousands would be killed by extreme amounts of deadly flying debris. -Runningonbrains 02:31, 29 June 2006 (UTC)