Author Topic: April 30 to May 8, 2007 - Including the Greensburg Kansas EF5 Tornado  (Read 81843 times)

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Offline Mike

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Re: April 30 to May 8, 2007 - Including the Greensburg Kansas EF5 Tornado
« Reply #60 on: 23 September 2007, 08:25:31 AM »
No, i wasn't correcting him, just making an observation of his question.  I'm not saying that all were suction vortices, but I was working out what the 'buldge' was that Andrej talked about.

 If it is a suction vortice did it dissipate or did it form with the main funnel ? Hard to tell by one or two photographs and without video to see where it went.  I'm not too sure of the sizes that satellite funnels get but that they do spin around the circumference of the main funnel grounded and in opposite direction to it also.

 So yes, I agree re satellite funnels/suction vortices are classed as tornadoes.

If the suction winds are present right around the main ground zero funnel and also present within the area of this region then yes you would have either one visible.  I would hope that it's not as general as this because there are so many dynamics (kinematic?) causing other things to happen around this area of interest.

There has been some discussion as to whether these things are actually tornadoes - but as a direct result of wind vorticity and of the storm itself they surely must be classed as tornadoes - even if they don't touch the ground.  I don't believe that you have to see it grounded to class it a tornado - the storm is producing something only when certain criterian are met right? 

From the photos it looks like on the LHS it could be a parent vortex but did not form and on the other side a satellite - but who knows - without the footage none of us can judge it's movement during the tornado phase!  Does that help?

Mike
Darwin, Northern Territory.
StormscapesDarwin.com
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