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This rotating updraft is known as a mesocyclone. [8] For a tornado to form in this manner, a rear-flank downdraft enters the center of the mesocyclone from the back. Cold air, being denser than warm air, is able to penetrate the updraft. The combination of the updraft and downdraft completes the development of a tornado.
A mesocyclone is a type of mesovortex, approximately 1 to 10 km (0.6 to 6 mi) in diameter (the mesoscale of meteorology), within a convective storm. [6] Mesocyclones are air that rises and rotates around a vertical axis, usually in the same direction as low pressure systems in a given hemisphere.
These are especially dangerous storms, since the mesocyclone is wrapped with rain and can hide a tornado (if present) from view. These storms also cause flooding due to heavy rain, damaging downbursts , and weak tornadoes, although they are also known to produce strong to violent tornadoes.
A tornado is a violently rotating column of air in contact with the surface and a cumuliform cloud base. Tornado formation is caused by the stretching and aggregating/merging of environmental and/or storm-induced vorticity that tightens into an intense vortex. There are various ways this may come about and thus various forms and sub-forms of ...
The tornado touched down on Gizmo, a 15-year-old Yorkshire Terrier, has intercepted around 200 tornadoes, a handful of hurricanes, including a Category 5 storm, and many other extreme weather ...
In the image, the bats are in the red zone, which corresponds to winds moving away from the radar station, and enter into a mesocyclone associated with a tornado (in green). These events may occur easily with birds, which can get killed in flight, or stunned and then fall (unlike flightless creatures, which first have to be lifted into the air ...
An Illinois man is holding on to one of the only things he loved that survived a tornado that ripped through his town last week Eight tornadoes hit northern and central Illinois on Thursday. The ...
Landspout is a term created by atmospheric scientist Howard B. Bluestein in 1985 for a tornado not associated with a mesocyclone. [3] The Glossary of Meteorology defines a landspout: "Colloquial expression describing tornadoes occurring with a parent cloud in its growth stage and with its vorticity originating in the boundary layer .