Tornadoes: More needs to be learned, but.....

[Iamme]

...you mean that not enough tornadoes, and the storms they form from, have not had enough study, to know which storm will simply have high winds and maybe hail?, and which ones have all? the ingredients necessary to make a tornado almost a certainty?

I am very likely going to get ahold of a local tv stations and see if they will not do a story on this. Or, maybe The Weather Channel.

There are getting to be one too many tornados for my liking. Four days ago, up here, was the 50th anniversary of an F-5! that killed 21 or 28 people. An F-5 in the Eau Claire area! Not Kansas. Unreal.

And the path was from west to east. Not out of the southwest, that I was always told about. I want to find out what all the factors are involved. You can have rotation of the cell yet no funnel. Or you might have one. I actually sat under one of these once, wondering if one would drop down over my head! No joke! The jet stream?; what role does THAT play if any? Moisture coming up from the Gulf? What? There must be answers to what forms these and...

...the mystery of why they form as one small piece out of a much bigger cloud, unlike a hurricane where the entire storm itself is sort of the entire tornado. There seems to be more of a logic that way, with the hurricane. Because then you can't ask this: Why does a tornado form in that particular spot, and not 50 or 500 feet elsewhere in the storm?

Of the thousands of super cells/tornados, and all the chasers out there and monitoring, shouldn't they know everything by now? I don't get that.

[XBoxWarrior]

The real trick is to live in the mountains...kinda windy, but no tornadoes.

And the next best bene? No FLOODS!

[Gord_in_Toronto]

...you mean that not enough tornadoes, and the storms they form from, have not had enough study, to know which storm will simply have high winds and maybe hail?, and which ones have all? the ingredients necessary to make a tornado almost a certainty?

I am very likely going to get ahold of a local tv stations and see if they will not do a story on this. Or, maybe The Weather Channel.

There are getting to be one too many tornados for my liking. Four days ago, up here, was the 50th anniversary of an F-5! that killed 21 or 28 people. An F-5 in the Eau Claire area! Not Kansas. Unreal.

And the path was from west to east. Not out of the southwest, that I was always told about. I want to find out what all the factors are involved. You can have rotation of the cell yet no funnel. Or you might have one. I actually sat under one of these once, wondering if one would drop down over my head! No joke! The jet stream?; what role does THAT play if any? Moisture coming up from the Gulf? What? There must be answers to what forms these and...

...the mystery of why they form as one small piece out of a much bigger cloud, unlike a hurricane where the entire storm itself is sort of the entire tornado. There seems to be more of a logic that way, with the hurricane. Because then you can't ask this: Why does a tornado form in that particular spot, and not 50 or 500 feet elsewhere in the storm?

Of the thousands of super cells/tornados, and all the chasers out there and monitoring, shouldn't they know everything by now? I don't get that.

Is your web browser broken? Or would you like some help in how to use it? I got "about 11,400,000 for tornadoes" when I Googled just now. Most of your questions are answered there somewhere. Do a bit of basic research and then come back.

[fuelair]

...you mean that not enough tornadoes, and the storms they form from, have not had enough study, to know which storm will simply have high winds and maybe hail?, and which ones have all? the ingredients necessary to make a tornado almost a certainty?

I am very likely going to get ahold of a local tv stations and see if they will not do a story on this. Or, maybe The Weather Channel.

There are getting to be one too many tornados for my liking. Four days ago, up here, was the 50th anniversary of an F-5! that killed 21 or 28 people. An F-5 in the Eau Claire area! Not Kansas. Unreal.

And the path was from west to east. Not out of the southwest, that I was always told about. I want to find out what all the factors are involved. You can have rotation of the cell yet no funnel. Or you might have one. I actually sat under one of these once, wondering if one would drop down over my head! No joke! The jet stream?; what role does THAT play if any? Moisture coming up from the Gulf? What? There must be answers to what forms these and...

...the mystery of why they form as one small piece out of a much bigger cloud, unlike a hurricane where the entire storm itself is sort of the entire tornado. There seems to be more of a logic that way, with the hurricane. Because then you can't ask this: Why does a tornado form in that particular spot, and not 50 or 500 feet elsewhere in the storm?

Of the thousands of super cells/tornados, and all the chasers out there and monitoring, shouldn't they know everything by now? I don't get that.Like many other natural weather/ground /water activities, the problem is there are too many factors involved to be able to predict more than statistically for tornados, earthquakes, etc. Supercomputers provided
all available data constantly MIGHT increase accuracy slightly.

[Dancing David]

There are a lot of issues, weather is a chaotic system, you can have the meso cyclone (medium size rotation) but not have a tornado.

Things to watch for in the sky:
1. Wall clouds
2. "Boob" clouds (often indicates rotation, very round and hanging down) not the common teat clouds
3. Clouds heading in two or more directions at different altitudes.
4. Meso cyclones.

Things to listen for on the radio, if you have a decent weather person

1. 'High winds aloft' or 'difference in direction with altitude' these are needed for thunderstorms to occur other wise the rain falls in the updarft and you have a pop-up shower.
2. The confluence of the 'wet/dry' line in your area, the difference in moisture content often drives super cell storms.
3. The confluence of the 'hot/cold' line in your area, the difference in temperature can drive super cell.
4. 'Cold air aloft", when you have cooler air in the upper area then storms can rise very well and opposed to when it is an inversion and you have 'warmer air aloft'.

Things I do, watch the weather channel and especialy the radar look for the red and deep red cell, especialy with the hook.
Look at www.nws.noaa which gets real slow in severe weather.

I used to be stupid and chase weather, I have seen an F0 tornado in town, multiple funnel clouds, cold weather funnels and many 'boob' clouds, sort of semi circular hanging down frm the main cloud. In fact i was in a high straight line wind chasing such a thing.

The wind kicked up to over sixty and are got in the ditch because the car started rocking. It went "Waaaaaaaaa" just like a train of semi horn but much louder, sort of like the 'horn of heaven'.

I was also walking home one night when funnel went over head, it was pouring rain, the rain stopped, it went 'woosh-woosh-woosh-woosh....' and then it started to pour again.

Storm chasing is fun but dangerous, we drove into hail one time that dumped about two incehes of hail in three minutes. I chase lightning occasionaly now. Still nothing like the tropics.

If you can there are some great tornados on YouTube, especialy the manitoba one.