Egyptian "Tornado"

[Rebekah LaBar]

Check out www.spaceweather.com today (below the solar flare news):

Yesterday at the Bibliotheca Alexandrina in Alexandria, Egypt, astronomer Aymen Ibrahem dashed outside during a rainstorm "hoping to photograph a rainbow." Instead he found himself face-to-face with a rare Egyptian tornado:


[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]"The last tornado in this part of Egypt happened in 1981," says Ibrahem.


[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Strong tornadoes are born in rotating thunderstorms called supercells. To make a supercell, you need a cold, dry mass of polar air crashing into a warm, moist mass of tropical air. These two kinds of air frequently meet in the mid-section of the United States--hence Tornado Alley. But they rarely meet in Egypt. [/FONT]

[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Indeed, there was no supercell over Alexandria yesterday. The twister Ibrahem saw was probably a lesser form of tornado called a "funnel cloud," which didn't even reach the ground. Nevertheless, "I was lucky to catch it," he says.[/FONT]​

[/FONT]

I thought it was rather amusing to find we now "make" supercells from those crashing air masses...and a funnel cloud is just a "lesser form of tornado", lol. Interesting occurence and nice photo nonetheless.

 

[Tarmo Tanilsoo]

Seems more like a waterspout for me.

 

[Andrew Herron]

Is it coincidence that there's something white poking up from behind the building right about where a debris cloud would be?

 

[Dave Nelson]

Yes I noticed that too, Andrew, but unless its debris coming off maybe a
building its well above "apparent" ground level. OR ... maybe a steep hill rises immediately behind the foreground building.

cheers

 

[Bob Hartig]

I wondered the same thing. I expanded the photo and concluded that whatever the object in question is, it's a solid structure and is neither a debris cloud nor associated with the tornado. Could be the top of a high-rise.

 

[aaron.burkham]

it could be a cold air funnel