Elie, Manitoba F5 tornado windspeeds

[Lanny Dean]

Yeah, that Wiki was in error. I think people look at the range of the wind speeds on the scale and head straight to the top.

The extreme narrow funnel winds in this case have sparked some interest in the modeling of tornado votices community. Apparently there has been some thought that winds may reach extreme speeds (briefly) during certain phases of the tornado's evolution. I have no references handy, though.

A short paper on the damage survey of Elie is available at:

http://ams.confex.com/ams/pdfpapers/141718.pdf

Pat

I certainly do not want to give a plug for someone that does not already need it but I believe Reed has some wonderful video from May 4 2007 near Woods county OK of a tornado with these "extreme" vorticies, and if I am correct I believe there was/is ongoing study of not only vortex breakdown but also the so called "extreme" speeds.
As we all know, the tornado Reed filmed was not very wide but it was very very intense and of course they got some good close up video of this.
Maybe Reed can shed more light on this as well??

 

[Danny Neal]

I am sure I am not the only one to also notice the insane "wacky" track this tornado took. Could this be because of the tornado rotating around the mesocyclone itself? I.E - Shane Adams Argonia, KS, tornado back in 2004? I have seen several Youtube videos of this tornado and always noted its switch in direction, but never fully realized the 2 "loops" it did in the actual damage path. It hit that mill twice in nearly the same spot and did a loop around the far SW side of Elie. On a humorous note (not that there should be any) but I have to feel like a lucky guy and probably would have bought a lottery ticket that night if I lived in that Elie loop.