Anti-cyclonic motion in Mulvane, KS Tornado?

[Charles Allison]

Can anyone notice any anti-cyclonic motion in the video clip below? I know the tornado was not anti-cyclonic but I have watched the video more than a few times and it looks as if there is some anti-cyclonic spin in the portion of the video that I have slowed and pasted at the end. This was from the June 12th Mulvane Kansas tornado. Pretty sure someone else would have video of this portion up close.

http://www.oklahomalightning.com/MultiVort.wmv

 

[Jeff Snyder]

Hmm... the video isn't working for me... Something about the WMV2 codec not being recognized or something? Just lettin' ya know.

EDIT: Nevermind... tried it again and it works... Go figure...

At any rate, I used Windows media player to slow down the clip more (to 0.5x)... The motion at ground-level (well, tree-level) is so intense that it's tough to keep track or direction-of-rotation. It does kind of look like the condensation immediately reverses direction at one point, but I can't imagine this is physically possible, and therefore I tend to think the rapid change in the condensation (height, slant from front-to-back, etc) is creating that sort of illusion... The particular sequence in question, as I'm seeing it, lies between 0:12-0:16...

 

[Bill Hamilton]

It worked for me. It is an interesting video.

 

[nickgrillo]

Nice.

BTW, what was the Mulvane tornado on the F-scale? Looks like it could do some considerable damage, if not near the violent level.

 

[mikegeukes]

Nick Grillo ask: BTW, what was the Mulvane tornado on the F-scale? Looks like it could do some considerable damage, if not near the violent level.

The Mulvane tornado was rated as a strong F3.

Mike

 

[Bob Schafer]

There is one very short segment of my vids in which I noted to whomever was standing nearby that there was anti-cyclonic rotation.

It's too short to even use the segment to verify.

If it wasn't so late right now as I type this, I would pull it out to get the time stamp for ya, but I could do that tomorrow, or sometime, if you're interested.

Bob

 

[Shane Adams]

The Mulvane tornado only appeared to be anticyclonic because of the writhing motion at the base; several tornadoes do this "trick" where your eyes seem to be seeing anti motions when in fact it's just your eyes playing tricks on you. It's physically impossible for rotation to switch directions in an insstant like that I'd think.

If you'll look at other videos, you'll see that several tornadoes create this illusion. Sometimes when I see a tornado video, even though I know it's cyclonic, my eyes take a few moments to adjust and the tornado seems to be anticyclonic.....Mulvane is a great example of this. I have that same portion of the tornado from a different angle and I agree it does *look* anticyclonic at times, but it was purely cyclonic throughout its life.

BTW - great video.

 

[Richard Halter]

It's cyclonic - the funnel may be difficult to read, but the debris field is definitely spinning cyclonically.