Every once in awhile something comes along that just makes you sit back and watch in awe. This is one of those times. Jakob McMillin writes on X: (click to watch the video)
Every once in awhile something comes along that just makes you sit back and watch in awe. This is one of those times. Jakob McMillin writes on X: (click to watch the video)
Holy holey!
What must it have seemed like to the early settlers, mostly from nations which had no experience of such weather..?
How essential is a water vapor for a tornado? Do we have a Navier Stokes equation for a condensing/evaporating water participation?
‘Do we have a Navier Stokes equation for a condensing/evaporating water participation?’
No, too intractable. Better to apply the far simpler phenomenological physics of radiative transfer theory, which is not only tractable, but also affords an excellent living to our climate modeling elites, who largely enable the Left’s goal of obtaining political power by cratering the West’s energy infrastructure.
Quite the video, here, Anthony. Thanks. I’ve been far too close to half a dozen tornadoes, mostly in my years of farming in Eastern Wyoming.
In reply to Curious, Kuo suggested long ago that tornadoes are parasitic on the energy flows in a larger convection system. One of my own observations suggesting this is so occurred on June 6, 2018 in the Laramie tornado which was extremely well photographed. There was no precipitation. It was what is called a “low precipitation storm”.
I was on the roof of our home at the time putting up a weather station, by strange coincidence, for my seven year-old and watched the whole process. There were dry-line thunderstorms to our north embedded in a general uplift of air which gave the thunderstorms a soft veil-like envelope. Very strange appearance that is probably not pertinent to the story at this time. There was also a strong flow of air from the southwest at my location on the south flank of the big storm. The development of the main tornado vortex proceeded just as in Anthony’s video.
This was a strong (F3) counterclockwise (viewed from above) rotating vortex within a counterclockwise rotating thunderhead. As time went on a new thunderhead began to develop to the south of the one bearing the tornado — almost overhead at my location. This one was rotating clockwise as viewed from above, and I would guess it was initiated by the rear-flank downdraft of the well-developed storm to its north and obtained a clockwise rotation from strong air flow now sandwiched between two convection cells.
It tried with all its might to develop a tornado too, but the puny clockwise vortex stayed aloft and never produced a funnel connected to the surface, and rotation of the vortex aloft stayed weak. Thus, two vortexes with each one reflecting the characteristics of the larger flow which birthed them.
A similar pair of vortexes is often observed, as was the case in the tornadoes at Pilger, Nebraska — one strong and one weak, with the weaker one rotating clockwise. This makes sense because there is always an excess of planetary vorticity (counterclockwise in the Northern Hemispher) in the converging flows of air that feed a thunderstorm.
I want to launch rockets into tornadoes to directly inject sensors for moisture, temperature, pressure, electrical activity, light levels, air speed etc. The same rockets could also deliver loads of precision dimension metallized mylar chaff.
The purpose of that would be to improve the accuracy of Doppler RADAR at calculating wind speed. By knowing the exact size of the chaff, speed calculations could be very precise.
Off the shelf solid fuel motors could be used. The rocket bodies should be plain cardboard so upon entering the high speed funnel cloud they would be ripped apart to spill the sensors and chaff.
For targeting and tracking, the hardware to do it is dirt cheap and software is open source. Perhaps a low end single board computer with WiFi and a camera input. Put a bigger antenna and power booster on the WiFi and use Open CV to identify the target and keep the rocket on course with cheap micro servos steering the fins. I bet the entire guidance and control system could be put together for under $100.
As the crew of Red Dwarf might say, “Swirly thing alert!”
Mauve alert! Mauve alert!
Move Alert ! Move Alert!
😉
“We got cows”.
Humor – a difficult concept
— Lt. Saavik
Thank you for the quote from Twisters. 🙂
Funnel cloud, to tornado, to loss of energy and dissipation, great to see science live.
And how it fades and reforms, drop and lift multiple times. Most people don’t understand a single tornado can travel a good distance and touch down several times, not just a single run along ground.
Wow! Having been in close proximity to several tornadoes I can say that is terrifyingly awesome.
They are awesome in close proximity. Particularly so when they have debris rising and swirling around them.
If you want a more aesthetic version, check out the “Vorticity” videos by photographer Mike Oblinski! The latest; Vorticity 6, came out last summer; time lapse photography with original music.
What’s not to love?
WoW! Me, I’d be headed in the opposite direction! 🏃🏼♂️➡️
Bah, could not Google up the description of hygiene theory I was looking for
“Herzberg’s motivation theory is one of the content theories of motivation. These attempt to explain the factors that motivate individuals through identifying and satisfying their individual needs, desires and the aims pursued to satisfy these desires.”
The idea is an analogy for:
A doctor washing his hands removes germs.
If he washes his hands agains, will the he not remove MORE germs?
and if he washes his hands agains, will the he not remove MORE germs?
and if he washes his hands agains, will the he not remove MORE germs?
and if he washes his hands agains, will the he not remove MORE germs?
and if he washes his hands agains, will the he not remove MORE germs?
etc
At what point are his hands “clean enough?”
There’s a big overlap with this version of hygiene theory and the economic theory of diminishing returns.
Why a comment on this here?
The photographer in that video sure took a lot of still photos.
At what point did he have “enough photos”?Same thing bothers me whan I see people in the stands at televised sports events filming the game with their cell phone camera.
Eventually too much hand-washing is counterproductive, as the entire outer layer of dead skin will have been removed. Germs stick around for much longer on fresh skin than they do on the constantly ablating “horny layer” (yes, that’s what it’s called).
It is beautiful, and very frightening. What magnitude of tornado is this, and what kind of damage can these events produce?
I wouldn’t dare get out of my car to take photos. I’d be too afraid of being struck by lightning. Thunderstorms already scare me enough! (I’ve stopped feeling self-conscious about it for some time now. After all, it’s one of the most primitive fears there is.)
Time lapse of the video was 1 minute. Anybody know what actual time period this correspond to?
What caused it to do that little wiggle dance?
It knew it was on camera, girl’s gotta wiggle.