Talk:Tornado/Archive 5

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"the intense low pressure caused by the high wind speeds(see Bernoulli's principle)"

Can't we get rid of this statement?? I've tried before, but it keeps coming back. Something about Bernoulli's principle must have been misunderstood.

Tornado climatology section

This particular section needs to be cleaned up and clarifications made. For example, exactly which country sees the most twisters per year? I've seen several different countries named.Jlujan69 01:11, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

It's the United States, as stated in the article. While I will admit there are a few clarity issues, there are no factual inconsistancies. -RunningOnBrains 15:26, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

Agreed. The real controversy with tornado counts lies in which country has the most tornadoes per unit area per year (most tornadoes per square mile/km and so forth). This is where you start to see smaller countries like the UK and Belgium enter the mix as contenders. There are large parts of the US, especially places such as Alaska and regions west of the Rockies, that have such a sparsity of tornadoes as to bring the US tally of tornadoes/unit area down. CapeFearWX 03:07, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, clarifications could be be made, but there are not any falsities. Number of tornadoes vs tornadoes per area (tornado "density") is where people seem to be confused; though there is also some awkwardness with the UK. As for the Netherlands and United Kingdom's high tornado density, it remains even if you account for the larger size of the U.S. There are more tornadoes than in Florida or Oklahoma, the U.S. leaders of density of all tornadoes and strong tornadoes, respectively. When a tornado comes to your town, make sure to stay savely under a big window made of fiber glass. And remember to use a condom. =] Almost all UK tornadoes are weak, whereas the Netherlands seems to follow an intensity distribution roughly similar to the US and most of the world for areas which we have sufficient data. Strong tornadoes do occur there, but so few tornadoes occur annually (less than the UK in raw numbers) that strong tornadoes are relatively rare. Several strong tornadoes do occur every year within Europe. Evolauxia 23:05, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

Actually, Oklahoma and Florida do beat any European area for tornado density, especially if you discount the Europeans' tendancies to count waterspouts in their official tornado records.-RunningOnBrains 02:57, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

I'm not quite sure that Italy needs to be placed in that introduction paragraph on its own. I believe that it should state "Central Europe (including Italy)" if anything, but placing Northwestern and Central Europe and then Italy seems quite awkward. WiiAlbanyGirl 23:56, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

Frequency and density statistics

The data I used, the most up-to-date and reliable available, makes a distinction between tornadoes and waterspouts --and if it didn't the Netherlands would be much higher yet.

US annual frequency (Brooks):

~1200 observed over land

British annual frequency (Dotzek, 2003):

33 observed, 50 estimated over land (15 obs, 30 est over water)

Dutch annual frequency (Dotzek, 2003):

20 observed, 35 estimated over land (60 obs, 100 est over water)

Netherlands (Dotzek, 2003):

20 / 16,033 mi² = .0013 tor / mi²

United Kingdom (Dotzek, 2003):

33 / 94,526 mi² = .00035 tor / mi²

Florida (1953-2004) (NCDC):

55 / 65,795 mi² = .00084 tor / mi²

Oklahoma (1953-2004) (NCDC):

57 / 69,960 mi² = .00081 tor / mi²

Annually, the Netherlands observes about 3.7x more tornadoes per area than the UK, 1.5x more than FL, 1.6x more than OK, not including the very large number of waterspouts.

Also, check out this paper on intensity distributions and several subsequent more esoteric ones if it piques your interest. Evolauxia 04:41, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

Hm...I always thought those European numbers were contaminated by waterspouts. I also must have done some incorrect math, because I could have sworn I did the math and it worked out. It would be interesting to see estimates on Oklahoma's actual tornado numbers given the population density difference. Good research. -RunningOnBrains 15:46, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

I wondered about contamination from waterspouts in Europe and even more so non-tornadic circulations in the UK. The Netherlands actually has had a waterspout spotter network for a long time, and I've heard that other areas along the North and Baltic Seas also have networks. There is a large underreporting problem in Europe, but I wonder about QC standards too for what is reported. The data Dotzek et al collected does seem fairly reliable though, but much of it is estimates as there aren't formal programs yet in many countries, although that is starting to change. There is also underreporting in the US, the Netherlands has an extremely high population density, one of the highest in the world, whereas the US is lower, particularly the most tornado prone areas. Most of the large tornadoes are counted (though I'd bet that a number slip through in the northern Plains although storm chasers are reducing that), it's the smaller ones that are an issue (and reporting of those has skyrocketed in the last couple decades accounting for the rise in US tornado numbers). The true annual mean number of tornadoes in the US is probably around 2000. A lot of mesovortex tornadoes go unaccounted, especially at night, some estimates in the hundreds just for those. Evolauxia 16:31, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

Caps ?

Checking the wikilinks, Fujita scale is not capped, but Enhanced Fujita Scale is; which is correct? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:44, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

Usage varies in the media but the scientific community tends to capitalize everything, although that isn't entirely consistent either. Given that the "Fujita Scale" and "Enhanced Fujita Scale" refer to specific things (vs. generic "tornado intensity scale"), that makes them proper nouns that should be capitalized, in my opinion. Evolauxia 23:37, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

When I created Enhanced Fujita Scale I did so because the majority of sources (all of them, I believe) had all the words capitalized. With Fujita Scale, it appears to go either way. -RunningOnBrains 16:05, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

Dead links on refs

42. ^ Kelly, Schaefer, McNulty, et al. (1978-04-10). An Augmented Tornado Climatology (PDF). Monthly Weather Review 12. Retrieved on 2006-09-13.

46. ^ South African Tornadoes. South African Weather Service (2003). Retrieved on 2007-02-27.

Gopher backer 02:55, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

I was able to find the link to South African tornadoes and fix it...I guess they just restructured their website. As for the MWR article, apparently it is no longer available online, but there is enough info there to look it up in print. I think I have a copy of the PDF on my computer, I'll see if I can make it a full journal citation.-RunningOnBrains 18:43, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

All MWR articles should be available at the AMS server (and NOAA maintains a directory of really old MWRs). All AMS journal articles older than five years are open access, whereas less than five years old are restricted to subscribing institutions or individuals. Here is the link for An Augmented Tornado Climatology. Google Scholar is a good resource for finding scholarly articles and occasionally other documents. Evolauxia 19:18, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

Vandalism

This is a featured article!! Why did I have to revert vandalism on it? Shouldn't these be semi-protected or something, especially since it went almost 45 minutes unfixed? Apparently we don't have enough editors watching it. Wikidan829 13:31, 22 May 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia has a policy about not protecting featured articles (i cant remember where to find it) but basically the article still gets more good contributions then bad from not being protected. Also, thankyou to whoever reverted that left to right vandalism, it was ammusing for the first 5 seconds but then i wanted to get back to reading. Trottsky 13:34, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

I highly doubt that there are more beneficial than malicious contributions, and there certainly were not with tornado as the FA of the day. Even when the page was closely watched and editors diligently fought vandalism, some slipped through, including significant portions of the article missing wherein I was forced to do a revert to a revision from much earlier in the day. Evolauxia 02:19, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

Too many images

This article has too many images. This shouldn't be a repository for galleries. It's also affecting headings. The first half of the article should cut down on images. ~ UBeR 06:03, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

I purged the most extraneous images, and rearranged the images in the code to go with the appropriate section. The headers are now where they're supposed to be, although they're a bit distracting it's better than it was. Evolauxia 06:47, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

I just looked at this article for the first time and I have to say...*bleep* that's a lot of images. Still, each image has a different purpose in the article. Overall, I like it. Oops, not a valid statement. I'll just say that this article deserves its featured status. Kudos to all of those who have helped make it what it is today. --LuigiManiac 13:15, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

It looks a lot better now. ~ UBeR 17:56, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

I think there are still too many god damn images. Lets see what we can do to take out some of the repetitive images toward the top of the article. Bowa491 18:54, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

Here I have to disagree...aside from one or two, they all illustrate important concepts, especially at the beginning of the article. -RunningOnBrains 19:25, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

I don't see a problem of excessive images. There are a couple somewhat superfluous images, however, if it's agreed that there should be a further reduction. Evolauxia 05:05, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

km vs m etc.

Could someone please enlighten me on wikipedia policy in regards to the metric system? it seems tedious to state every statistic in miles/feet etc and then have metric measurements in brackets. Trottsky 13:27, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

Basically, articles are intended for a global audience, so the US system and the SI system are used as is done in this article. What the primary unit system is depends on the nature of the article. See the relevant section in the Manual of Style. Evolauxia

14:31, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

In articles such as this metric units should be given precedence, with imperial units in brackets. This article is not specific to UK or US. If it was then it would be fine, indeed preferable, the other way round. As for the spellings, to avoid antagonising anyone km should be used for kilometre and m for metre. If all else fails, then kilometre should be used, if only because in the USA the metric system is not routinely used, so one might ask why their spelling - kilometer - should be preferred. 82.12.234.32 17:17, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

I agree, but tell it to the US and Wikipedia. SI/metric is the standard for science, is what most of the world uses, and is increasingly for business and other uses in the US, UK, etc. Evolauxia 11:39, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

Trailer parks

Tornadoes often inflict significant damage to trailer parks; the trailer park article mentions that this is because mobile homes are not secured to the ground and are less able to withstand high winds. Perhaps this information should be included in the article? Isopropyl 14:44, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

Trailers are used as tornado bait, we should create an article and submit it to Did You Know? ;-) Evolauxia 11:50, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

I think that the metal in trailer homes atract tornadoes through thier connecting electrical charge. ;-) Just kidding... Juliancolton 22:33, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

expert elicitation

Can someone who is in the know make a stub? Currently, it is unnecessary jargon thrown in without explanation or an article. -RunningOnBrains 15:08, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

I think it is important, but agree that it's a bit of jargon that isn't helpful without further explanation. Such an article is on my To Do list. Evolauxia 20:41, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

Confusion with hurricanes/typhoons

I know tornado != hurricane, and I know you guys know it, but Joe Public doesn't seem to, so should we perhaps mention in the Misconceptions section that tornadoes are often misnamed "hurricanes" or "typhoons", a much larger phenomenon? Or has someone already tried that but proven unable to cite it adequately? The closest I can come to a citation is early episodes of the English dub of The Mysterious Cities of Gold (an old cartoon), where a waterspout is called a "typhoon" by a character and a "hurricane" by the narrator. (I was about 10 when I saw it, and I still knew they were wrong!) I also tried with great frustration to explain to a fellow university student (he was doing Economics, naturally) -- I think in the end I said hurricane = Star Destroyer, tornado = TIE Fighter... Dave-ros 19:56, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

A paragraph clarifying different names for tornadoes, regional and colloquial (and perhaps historical if it seems relevant and important), is appropriate. It could be another subparagraph of the Definitions section? Evolauxia 08:29, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

Just try getting the official difference between the two at the Storm Prediction Center's tornado website: [1]. Being a government website, the contents are not copyrighted. Ks0stm 17:55, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

aren't FA's always protected?

Matt Kurz 23:45, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

• Sorry, I didn't read the talk RE: this above.Matt Kurz 23:46, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

Here is the specific guideline on FAs and protecting such pages: Wikipedia:Main_Page_featured_article_protection -- _Hdt83 ^Chat 23:47, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

As Wikipedia is so open there should be hesitancy to (semi-)protecting the FA, but because of the incessant vandalism it should at least be protected to unregistered users. I don't know about FAs in general but if today was any indication (and it seems reasonable to extrapolate), there are inordinately more malicious than helpful edits, and both readers and editors shouldn't have to deal with it. It required constant attention and I thank those that were so diligent in trying to keep up with vandalism, but I was forced to revert back to an edit in which I knew the article was intact, as the article as it had been was missing large portions and I'm not piecing it back together from dozens of edits in the interim. Judging from the edit summaries I haven't reverted out any helpful edits, but I apologize if I did. Evolauxia 02:12, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

Do you think that Wikipedia:Main Page featured article protection should be redrafted or not? Please help form consensus at Wikipedia talk:Main Page featured article protection#Consensus. DrKiernan 09:51, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

Yes, I second that, anyone that has an opinion, please voice it. Evolauxia 22:47, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

Gushy compliments

Even by FA standards, this is an extremely good article. Many congratulations to all involved. Gushy compliment over. --Legis (talk - contributions) 09:44, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

New section on Hazards/Significance

I'm finally preparing to write the forecasting portion for the prediction section, as well as additions to other sections (e.g. climate change/ENSO effects on tornado activity in the climatology section, and clarification on non-supercell types), and it came to mind that we don't have a hazards (or significance --why tornadoes are important, i.e. there's little mention of danger to life and property, and statistics and trends thereof) section, which seems quite important, and strange to be missing from a phenomena that is hazardous, and that is contained in many professional works and encyclopedias.

It ties in very well with the prediction and detection threads, as well as somewhat with safety and climatology and others to some degree. I'm willing to write it, but I'm not sure when I'll get to it, and thought I'd air it here before throwing a whole new section into a highly praised FA unannounced. The article is large, but not exceptionally so, and a discussion of hazards is warranted. Evolauxia 20:39, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

A New Tornado Alley ?

During the last 5 years reports of increasing numbers of violent tornados in the Romanian Plain (Bucharest - Braila - Calarasi Triangle) are showing the emergence of a new "tornado alley", this time in Europe. Can anyone add some information about this rapidly developing phenomenon and put it into the main article?

The only info I can find on Romanian tornadoes is [www.meteo.fr/cic/wsn05/resumes_longs/1.27-257.ppt here] and [ams.confex.com/ams/pdfpapers/115304.pdf here], and what they suggest is far from a Tornado Alley-type area.-RunningOnBrains 03:58, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

Weather doesn't change so as to suddenly start producing tornadoes, it's either a temporary maximum in the overall climate or as seems to be the case here (and earlier in the US and as is currently occurring elsewhere in Europe), increased accounting/reporting accompanying modernization (increased detection and verification efforts), specifically the threat seems to have been identified after the adoption of Doppler radars. It's not a tornado alley calbre area, but it may be worth mentioning in a section in the tornado climatology article that discusses regional hot spots; like plains of northern Italy and around Venice. Tornadically active zones seem to be mostly found downwind (usually polarward) of a warm water source with blocking mountains to the direction of the mean deep layer flow, and often coincide with plains/agricultural areas (this occurs across the Netherlands, Belgium, northern France, into Germany, as another example). India/Bangladesh, Australian active areas, South Africa, and Argentina/Brazil/Paraguay also follow this pattern. A very high proportion of supercellular tornadoes are found in the mid-latitudes. Nonsupercellular tornadoes occur for a wide variety of reasons ergo heterogeneous regions. Evolauxia 08:05, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

Appearance/Size in regards to Wedge

I honestly think the section on Wedges under appearance should include the sentence stating that wedge tornadoes are typically called so because they are wider at their base than they are tall. This is a very general statement, but I believe that it should be added. May I do so, or is this stated in another section? WiiAlbanyGirl 23:53, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

More can be done on appearance and shape, we only have a limited repertoire, currently. Partly this is because there are limited photographs/drawings available, but public domain photos should be procurable for most kinds, however, the biggest problem is the colloquial nature of the terminology (a problem of this sort being that there are various names for the same thing). As long as visual examples are given, this might be okay, and there should be expansion, as said. Some expansion in this article is fine, although nothing drastic as it's already large. I do plan to write a vortex structure and dynamics article eventually, the different forms and features could fit in well there.

In the meantime, feel free to elucidate and clarify on wedge tornadoes, as what you said is what is meant by that term. Evolauxia 08:16, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

Can this phrase be improved?

As the funnel descends, the RFD also reaches the ground, creating a gust front that can cause damage a good distance from the tornado. Usually, the funnel cloud becomes a tornado within minutes of the RFD reaching the ground. Can a good distance be replaced with an actual (or estimated) measured distance? Gopher backer 18:03, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

Generally, it's a few kilometres for a strong RFD. Speaking of RFDs in general, often less, sometimes more. I've been meaning to do more work on the article. Evolauxia (talk) 02:14, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

How do Tornados Actually Form?--Revisited

I have been away from this discussion for a year or more, but what brought me back was the interesting discussion on the Coriolis effect in regard to tornado formation.

I agree that the Coriolis effect is a major factor in determining the direction of spin of the tornado as is evident from the statistics. I also agree that even if the earth did not spin, we would still have tornados, because the major cause of the intensity of the ferocious spin of the tornado is not the Coriolis effect but the combination of the updraft of warm air and the inrush of air to replace the air that is speeding aloft.

The vortex of the tornado was likened to the vortex that we see as the water drains from a tub. The force of the updraft of air in the tornado is analogous to the force that gravity exerts on the water. There are evidently forces at play that start the rotation of the media in one direction or the other. Once it gets started, the larger question is: "How is it possible, with prevailing winds only in the sub-100 mph range, that the speed of the air at the cylindrical wall of the tornado can get up to 300 mph?"

Even if we invoke the principle of conservation of angular momentum and the image of a skater going into a spin and drawing in her arms to increase the speed of her rotation, her hands and arms do not actually travel faster than they did when extended. Whe whole body rotates faster, but no part of her body can go faster than the speed of her hands.

Imagine all of the hot air over the land in the state of Kansas. It cannot all rise together into the wide blue yonder. There is too much of an overlay of the atmosphere. However, in that atmosphere there is always a variation of pressure. If the hot air finds a low pressure spot, a chink in the armor, it can punch through, and in a self sustaining flow, as more hot, bouyant air rushes into the opening, start the process of forming the cloud that is really a vertical wind tunnel of tremendous capacity. In a flight I was on during a particularly heavy occurance of tornado activity in the midwest, the pilot pointed out a cloud that was 60,000 feet tall!

The air that now rushes into the vacuum that is left by the air that is rushing aloft must be accelerated from whatever speed it was moving at. It is from this acceleration of air that the rotating wall of the tornado derives its speed.

The air rushing in may itself set up the direction of the initial rotation depending on the horizontal pressure gradient from the center of the updraft outward. If, looking from above, there is greater pressure to the left of center, the rotation will be clockwise, and visa versa. Once the rotation begins it is also self sustaining through momentum and for as long as the updraft continues.

As was said elsewhere, the cylindrical wall of the tornado is the locus of the vacuum force and the centrifugal force being equal. This wall, while it is somewhat of a barrier to air, forcing the air into an orbit, a holding pattern, is not impermeable. A certain amount of air does migrate through. As a matter fo fact, the wall of the tornado is made visible, initially, from the condensation of moisture out of the air that passes from the high pressure outside the wall to the low pressure%