calvinkaskey
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- Joined
- Feb 17, 2014
- Messages
- 384
It was definately tornadic, strong short lived. Might have only been 30 seconds on the "ground"
Tt should matter because the only way to get a fair risk assesment is to look at tree damage and tornadoes that don't hit any structure.
Here's an obvious example of not a tornado. This feature was rotating under a classic supercell, and developed right where a tornado should, and it condensed most of the way to the ground. Some chasers (most at a distance of a few miles) reported this as a funnel. It was, however, rotating at the speed akin to a roll cloud than a tornadic funnel. Definitely too weak to be a tornadic funnel cloud, but it is rotating and it might have a weak surface based circulation. There's a big grey area between these examples.
Funny when you see a photo and you realize you must have been standing almost next to the person when it was taken. One of my favorite photos (I've taken myself) was of that funnel/roll cloud. I had it as a background photo on my credit card for a while even.
This was taken about 1-2 minutes before your photo (I have a very similar photo like yours as well). We were standing quite near and really hoping for it to touch down since it would have been absolutely beautiful, but it never did. Our visibility of it was very good so I'm quite sure.
How would you determine that the winds were in contact with the ground if there's no damage?
Prove that it is more common for laminar, persistent, well-developed funnels 1/3 or more to the ground to NOT be tornadoes. In the case of such non-tornadoes, I would require that it could be absolutely confirmed by someone very close to it that there was NOT a circulation *capable* of damage on the ground (a dirt whirl, spray on wet fields, small debris). I contend that for nearly all such funnels that weren't counted, it was because the ground under the funnel couldn't be observed due to terrain/trees or every chaser/spotter being too far away.
If I see a brief dust WHIRL under a funnel/rotation/wall cloud/suspicious movement/lowering/etc., in my mind it is a tornado, and no explanation or 'other' definition would change my mind, since that is THE definition of a tornado. It does not matter what the feature above it looks like, nor does it matter how 'weak' it appears above.