Straight lines winds vs tornado winds?

[John Olexa]

On Tuesday I happen to turn on Myth Busters and it was about tornado winds. As a test they had both Sean Casey's TIV & Reed Timmer's Dominator to see how they would do in tornado like winds. They used a jet engine on a commercial airliner. First they tested a regular car at 165 MPH, (EF-3) the hood blew off and it was pushed backwards & spun around a little, that's it! Then they used Reed's & Sean's vehicles. Both never moved but Sean's door blew open (he forgot to lock it) After that test they up the winds to 250 MPH ! EF-5 type winds. The regular car was blown backwards quite a bit and did a few spins and at one point the back end lifted up but that was it! TIV didn't budge, but the Dominator was blown around a little bit.

My question deals with the regular test cars. 250 MPH winds and it didn't even flip??? If people didn't know better after watching that episode it would leave you to believe one is very safe in a car! Some how though, I have a feeling the results would be very different in real tornado winds

What is the big difference between straight lines winds (which is what this test really was) & tornado winds?

 

[rdale]

Tornado winds would not be coming in just that one direction. As the tornado passes by, the direction will change, and as it hits on the side then you have issues

 

[Bob Schafer]

I was a car racing fan for quite a long time; mostly Indy/Champ cars. I witnessed the establishment of the closed-course Guinness record for speed at ~240 mph in--IIRC--1998 at Fontana. Of course, top-fuel dragsters go over 300 mph "every day". The sound barrier was broken on land some years ago (close to 800 mph) Point being, the ability of a vehicle to survive high wind speed just depends on how your vehicle is configured. It is a pretty interesting science.

One of my favorite trivia things is that, because of the downforce created by the "upside down" wings, once an Indy Car reaches a speed of around 100 mph it could be driven upside down, like on a big ceiling.

As rdale said/inferred, the biggest issue with a tornado is all the mayhem that occurs, not to mention cows (and all the other debris) flying around at 200 mph.

 

[Dan Robinson]

There is a significant upward component in a tornado's wind field. The best video I've seen that illustrates this is of the May 8, 2008 Leighton, Alabama tornado:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=clFCtNN3GBM

 

[Shane Adams]

Dan's example is amazing. Here's the first one I thought of when reading this thread (first 30 seconds or so)....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UY2CWjbHFMM

 

[calvinkaskey]

So is it the wind over the vehicles that causes the low pressure and suction?

 

[rdale]

No, the wind gets under the body and pushes.

 

[Greg Higgins]

Going back to Shane's video example, you must remember that those were empty 53' trailers sitting in the parking lot NOT attached to a tractor. There is other video that shows the view from the ground and several trailers had their doors open. Don't know if these were the trailers that got airborne. There were NO tractors "tossed into the air" as the media portrayed the event. Even the after the storm footage from the air showed only trailers. The question is: did the winds get under the trailers? Excellent footage either way.

 

[Shane Adams]

Going back to Shane's video example, you must remember that those were empty 53' trailers sitting in the parking lot NOT attached to a tractor. There is other video that shows the view from the ground and several trailers had their doors open. Don't know if these were the trailers that got airborne. There were NO tractors "tossed into the air" as the media portrayed the event. Even the after the storm footage from the air showed only trailers. The question is: did the winds get under the trailers? Excellent footage either way.

Yeah, the trailers were empty, but an empty '53 van weighs between 12,000-14,000 pounds.....or the equivilant of the TIV. The upward motion needed to lift these trailers intact off the ground (they were undamaged during flight so they were not rolled first) is extremely impressive. Just a great example of how tornado size is not necessarily an indicator of its intensity.