Do you consider this one or two tornadoes?

[Wesley Luginbyhl]

I have been considering this is just one tornado, becuase the smaller funnel sort of came out of the bigger one. They seem pretty seperate to me, but I guess this comes down to the whole discussion of one tornado per meso. I was just curious though to what everone else thought.

This was in far NE corner of Kiowa county on May 5th. Here is a link to the video. Its kinda shaky when the second funnel is forming, but the road was horrible. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qoO9zqh63_o

 

[Willie Dines]

Hey Wesley , that's some pretty nice footage there , especially when driving on bumpy roads and having to deal with stronger, than normal wind speeds, whilst driving

As has as I can tell, both funnels were on the ground , but it's hard to tell, with the bumpy road making the videoing difficult , and sop, hopefully a few other of the good people on here can clarify this either way

I hope that this is of some help and thank you for posting the link

Willie

 

[MatthewCarman]

Interesting how one is cone shaped and the other is small and skinny. Why cant they both look alike?

 

[Jay McCoy]

that looks to me to be a satellite tornado. smaller than the 1st one and moving around it. That would be 2 seperate tornados in anybody book.

Ther argument about tornado coun mostly comes from people who count a tornado every time it touches and lifts back up for 5 seconds. If it hops and skips a few times whole trying to establish the ground circulation they may count it as 2-3 tornados or more. That is the issue. To most reputable chasers only count 1 per full tornado cycle. For me to count it it has to touch down the dissapate fully (rope out) before another forms. If the funnel lifts up for 10 seconds but never disappates then comes back down that is still the same tornadic circulation and is still only counted as 1 ( some will argue). It has to lift up and not redevelope for at least a couple minutes for me to count it as more than 1.

Buit in your case multiple tornados on the ground at the same time is counted seperately. I am not talking about a multiple vortex tornado where it is 1 main circulation with smaller vorticies.. some people actually count each one of those as a seperate tornado (give me a freakin break). yours looks to be 2 seperate circulations from 1 wall cloud. Nice catch.

 

[Derek Weston]

If were a person who encountered numerous tornadic storms chasing, I'd likely count mesos that dropped tornados that I've encountered, not necessarily a raw tornado count that would include many tornadoes from the same parent.

 

[Gene Moore]

The second vortex comes from behind, but I didn't see it clearly rotate around the axis of the original tornado. You seem to lose it in the rain?? but I didn't see it as a "replacement" vortex for the first one either. I'll say two tornadoes even though they are very close since I didn't see it act like a satellite vortex.

Gene Moore

* Great footage but ....can you investigate getting a clamp for your window to at least hold it steady shooting out the side like that. I got one from Bogan....you can leave it on when it's not attached. That is, remove it from the window (fast) as opposed to removing the camera from the tripod (slow).

 

[Wesley Luginbyhl]

Thanks for the input everyone.

On the video it is hard to tell at times with the shaking and all, but that smaller vortex I believe formed behind it as well. When we made our turn to head east, the second vortex must have dissapaited. The larger on then drifts north into heavier rain. I thought it lifted but after watching the video some more, i think it went a little bit longer before lifting. I bet it made it into SE Edwards County. I was in Pratt county near the border of the 3 counties looking due west.

I brought this up because I have not seen anything like this before myself, atleast where 2 vorticies were so large and acted like they did. I dont think this tornado got reported, because I never found anything close to it in the storm reports. I submitted a report the other day to Dodge City Office after it seemed this one went unnoticed. I have seen one other picture of it in the reports on here now, one picture by Michael Morris looking through the rain curtain.

The shaking of the camera annoys me just as much as anyone else. I can hold a camera steady on the bumpiest roads, but on saturday I had to give my camera to my friend to hold while i kept us from getting stuck in the middle of nowhere. Atleast KS doesn't have mud like the Panhandle, but it was still pretty bad. I will get a mount of some kind once I get some money again.

I added a few more pictures of when the second vortex was forming.

 

[Shane Adams]

It's two tornadoes IMO.

As far as counting mesocyclones, to each their own. Personally, when I count tornadoes, I count....tornadoes. You don't have to have an occlusion/meso hand-off to have two different tornadoes, which seems to be the popular thinking lately. I'm like Jay.....if it dissipates and then something comes back, I count it as two. Like Greensburg on Saturday....I counted three separate tornadoes, because each brief tornado (IMO) dissipated fully before the next funnel appeared.

 

[Mike Hollingshead]

If I'm unsure I make it real simple on myself and call it one. No matter what it "is" it will always look the same, so I figure it's not worth too much trouble worrying over it.