Alternate theory on Tornado winds

[RobertEarl]

Here is my theory:

In a tornado there is a terrific downdraft. A relatively small circular column of air moving down from the clouds above. Because of this downdraft a low pressure area is created in the cloud.

As the downdraft reaches the ground it forces the air at the ground to begin moving, and in that motion it seeks to fill the low pressure area created in the cloud above by the downdraft and so begins to rise.

Rising air does so in a left turn or counter-clockwise motion as seen from above. And that is what we see - a left turning rising air column. Those are the sideway winds that blow stuff around. But inside of what we see, is a tremendous downdraft of cold air!

Having looked at many a tornado damage picture, I have noticed that buildings do seem to be as if squashed from above. Not only do we see sideway wind effects, but the remains in some destroyed buildings seem as if they were never hit hard with winds that were blowing sideways. Like things still sitting on shelves. Some items not moved at all, while the walls were laid out to the sides.

Just a theory. Feel free to discuss.

[Warpy]

1. Downdraft? More like an updraft

that sucks up all the warm, humid air near the ground up into the storm cloud, giving the storm more energy.

People in the shelters reported feeling the air sucked right out of them in the middle of the storm today.

What seems to be clear is that the rotation itself starts within the cloud and that fortunately, most rotating clouds don't hit the ground.

[RobertEarl]

4. That is true, seemingly

I have seen just two small waterspouts... they came down from the clouds.

Down from the clouds was the visible formation. Something was driving the air down from the clouds.

Downdrafts are a well known and accepted condition in weather formations. What I am proposing is an almost needle like downdraft which is the basis of the tornadoes we see.

Due to the intense nature of the downdraft, an almost vacuum is formed in the cloud which, as you state: "... sucks up all the warm, humid air near the ground up into the storm cloud..."

As this air rises back up to fill in the low pressure in the cloud, it rotates and that is what we see.

This theory is based on the premise of: For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.

And: What comes down must go up.

[Gravitycollapse]

5. Newtons third law doesn't necessarily mean what it appears you are arguing.

Equal action and reaction may be important when we are talking about specific "work." But it doesn't mean that complex systems in one direction will induce a complex system in the other.

[RobertEarl]

9. I don't agree

And if you think about it, I doubt you would either.

There is a great amount of 'work' involved in a tornado.

Did you know that in a hurricane, winds aloft turn opposite of the surface winds? And without that opposite motion hurricanes do not exist?

[Gravitycollapse]

10. Wind direction in storms can be incredibly complex and make abrupt changes.

The reason for the spin in hurricanes is the coriolis effect. Which you might be referring to. But there is little or no coriolis effect in tornadoes because of scale.

[RobertEarl]

12. No

A hurricane has a balanced inflow and outflow. Take away that balance and there is no hurricane. Equal and opposite.

Wind direction in hurricanes is sustained. Such as it is in tornadoes. So your premises are all out the window. Try again later.

[CreekDog]

25. Tornadoes and thunderstorms with cells that gain rotation are usually accompanied by shear forces

which induce rotation.

i think.

[Gravitycollapse]

26. Yeah, I don't understand very well the physics involved with tornadoes or thunderstorms.

Most of my physics background deals with astrophysics. I only very briefly studied atmospheric physics.

But we apparently have an expert downthread.

[knitter4democracy]

18. Definitely an updraft.

When we had a tornado miss our house by 22', my mom and I were upstairs and trying to get to the basement. It felt like it was sucking everything up like a vacuum cleaner. I'll never forget trying to pull ourselves down the stairs as the wind pushed while the air sucked--hard to describe, but it was really scary.

[DCKit]

2. "The Day After Tomorrow" was a documentary. nt

[Gravitycollapse]

7. Except not really.

It makes use of very little actual science and then takes what's left and blows it up to a point of absurdity that does the climate change movement no help.

[RebelOne]

23. The Day After Tomorrow was a sci-fi film.

www.imdb.com/title/tt0319262/

[Gravitycollapse]

3. Your theory doesn't explain microbursts not creating tornadoes in other parts of the world.

For instance, in Arizona where monsoon thunderstorms routinely expend incredibly violent downdrafts that can create ground level sustained winds in excess of 100 mph.

[RobertEarl]

6. I had considered that

My response it that a huge mass of broad air movements does not allow for a relatively concentrated column as we see in tornadoes. That a very broad downdraft would so discombobulate the air motions that no small column (tornado) could form.

An infrared pic of a tornado may show different air temps. I wonder if any such images have ever been acquired? Such a thing could help my theory.

[Gravitycollapse]

11. Microbursts can be very narrow and well structured.

It is in fact these types of microbursts that wreak the most havoc. At least as far as localized damage.

[CreekDog]

27. funny you mention Arizona because subsidence there is a result of lifting in equatorial zones

so on a broad scale, Arizona's deserts are the by product of the Intertropical Convergence Zones along the equator (Hadley Cell circulation). so in a sense, a rainy, tropical, moist climate is bordered, necessarily, by the desert climates adjacent that it creates.

[AverageJoe90]

8. Sounds interesting, at least. n/t

[caseymoz]

13. I had thought . . .

. . . tornadoes were the result of updrafts. That you then have a rain of debris elsewhere. I have heard of debris raining down after a tornado. One theory I heard was that the swirling motion starts when an updraft pierces through an air inversion and starts the swirling motion aloft. This is consistent with the wall-cloud effect.

If it were driven by the downdrafts, you would, I think, have ice and hail sprayed out of the bottom of the vortex. You should see a trail of large hail and cold rain that was sprayed like a fire hose from the bottom of the vortex. That's not what's seen. What we see is the funnel in one place and the hail in another. This suggests that the updrafts are what we find within the funnel and the downdrafts are found where the hail comes down.

Another thing, if the funnel is started by a downdraft preceding the updraft, people on the ground should notice that downdraft building.

When you say that the air below rushes up to fill the low pressure, I must point out, the air above is already at a lower pressure in every situation. This should preclude the air above forcing itself into a downdraft below. Therefore, the air above can't actually start the process. The updraft can. So, it seems to me, it would be a matter of an updraft and an inversion aloft.

I would be careful about judging the process by the aftermath. A tornado is a chaotic situation, which leads to a lot of counter-intuitive results. A cautionary tale would be forensics investigators and arson. Recently, laboratory science has proved that many presumptions forensics experts made in investigating fires were incorrect, and this led to innocent people going to prison.

You're not going to have a situation like that misjudging the origins of tornadoes, but the lesson applies that human intuition is often a poor guide as to the results of a turbulent, chaotic phenomenon. You can't put together the anatomy of a tornado from the wreckage you find afterward.

[gadjitfreek]

14. As a storm chaser...

I believe you are developing an idea, not a theory. A theory is a term that is only applied after rigorous testing and confirmation by independent research. It's not even a hypothesis because a hypothesis suggests experimental design. Sorry, chemistry teacher here and I get a little crazy when I hear the word "theory" misapplied. It's how the creationists get away with denigrating evolution as "only a theory".

Tornadoes form as a result of differential wind fields. First, an updraft forms, due to rapidly cooling air aloft. The updraft pulls in air from the surrounding area, called "inflow". As the updraft begins to become rain-forming, the rain comes down, dragging air with it, forming a "downdraft". Wind shear causes the storm to rotate counterclockwise, pulling some of the forward flank downdraft into a rear flank downdraft. At the point where the wind fields from the FFD (the "gust front&quot , RFD and inflow intersect, you get a mesocyclone. The combination of updraft and RFD pulls the horizontal vorticity into a vertical column of rotating air. The complex wind fields that result make the damage impossible to predict. You are correct in that the RFD is really the key to the whole thing but not the only ingredient. There is PLENTY of horizontal wind speed to get into a house, lift up the roof, allowing the side walls to collapse. There is a great video made by chaser Tim Samaras of the June 24th, 2003 tornado that took out the town of Manchester, SD, that shows in slow motion this very thing happening. I can't find it on YouTube but it was broadcast on The Weather Channel that day and is part of Tim Samaras' DVD of storm chase footage.

Another contributor is that massive wedge tornadoes like this consist of a multitude of smaller subvortices that individually are more damaging than the tornado as a whole.

After OKC was narrowly missed on Sunday by another giant wedge that started out as a multiple-vortex tornado a deep breath of relief was sighed out by all...but yesterday's storm was a real disaster. As a storm chaser, I like my storms out in the open fields where no one will be impacted. No one wants to see a storm like this, EVER. Don't relax your vigilance...the severe weather continues today. I have never seen so many consecutive days of Moderate rated convective outlooks from www.spc.noaa.gov over the same area. Today SE OK and E TX are in the crosshairs so if you live in this area, please be very careful today and have a shelter in mind at all times.

[laundry_queen]

15. +1 nt

[caseymoz]

20. +1, thank you for the complete description.

BTW, how do you get into storm chasing?

[gadjitfreek]

22. I got started ten years ago...

I wanted to chase storms and I found a tour company called "Silver Lining Tours", run by Roger Hill, who has seen more tornadoes than any person alive. It's a great way to get into it. A lot of people branch out and go on their own but they never seem to have as much luck as when they go with Roger. We're a team and Roger is an amazing teacher.

[RobertEarl]

29. You are a teacher?

And you haven't a clue about what a theory means? OMG.

You wrote: "A theory is a term that is only applied after rigorous testing and confirmation by independent research."

&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&

We know there are cold-air downdrafts. That is a given. We know cold air falls because it is heavier. We know cold air displaces warm air because warm air easily rises.

We also know that a sign of tornado cells has a left turning hook because we see the clouds rotating. That signals rising air and low pressure on a very broad scale. This theory holds that in the center of that broad low pressure is a drill-press like concentrated flow of a cold downdraft.

A temperature sensitive infrared image of a storm would provide more information. Wonder if any of the chasers have created any such image?

[MattBaggins]

16. Most importantly, can we blow it up with nuclear bombs?

[CK_John]

17. IMO, on the ground we need dome shaped roofs with a channel venting system to equalize air pressure

from the tornado overhead.

[caseymoz]

21. Despite popular belief . . .

. . . differential air pressure doesn't do the damage. No, it's the 100-200+ MPH winds, just like in a hurricane.

For the pressure to cause explosion, it has to be far lower a differential than you find in a storm.

[BadgerKid]

19. Try this.

[gadjitfreek]

24. The 2003 (6/24, Manchester SD) F4 tornado

Went through this evolution...

Started out as a small tornado on the south side of US 14 and quickly grew into a monster wedge. It was a wedge as it came north and wiped out the town of Manchester and then slimmed into a cone as it slalomed north of town. The F4 rating came from an utterly devastated farm that took a direct hit, throwing grain silos hundreds of feet. It crossed the northbound road and slimmed down further into a drill press of a stovepipe tornado...it was in open field but had it hit anything it would have likely been rated as F5. It was at its strongest at this point, pretty terrifying to see. It paralleled the northbound road on the east side for a while before shifting over the road to the west side and then it roped out. It was on the ground for quite a while. Storm chaser Tim Samaras had placed turtle probes in the path of the storm and one took a direct hit, measuring a 100mb pressure drop in the span of five seconds. The tornado scoured all the gravel off the road, only the gravel under the flat cone-shaped probe remained. It was followed shortly thereafter by another long-lived but weaker tornado in the town of DeSmet, home of the Little House On The Prairie, east of Manchester. There had been many tornadoes earlier in the day, including an F3 cone tornado that went through Woonsocket, SD. I've seen about all the video one can see from this day, it was one week before my first ever storm chase. Sorry to have missed it but I don't think I would have wanted to see that devastation first-hand. No way.

[just us]

28. A Theory

Just as a warm ocean feeds a hurricane I think the super heated air from industrial and gas burning coupled with dust particles of smog increase the build up and severity of the storms over major cities.

[RobertEarl]

30. Watching the videos it becomes clear

Clear that it is water that comes crashing down from the clouds. Along with air.

And when you see the on-ground track of the storm where it crosses open land, a mud trail is left.

The vids of the forming tornado show a huge funnel shape at the base of the cloud. The cloud is full of water. Winds are flowing up from the ground and they hit the water column dropping forming the cloud laden water into a cone-shaped funnel. Inside that dropping tube of the tornado is a mass of water falling through the air.

When that mass of water hits, it hits like a ton of bricks smashing everything it hits.