The Cardioid: the basis for all tornado outbreaks???

[Lanny Dean]

Lanny,

I don't understand the math, but the concept? If that makes sense. How does this apply to the the Memphis storms. I noticed that the Tornado's were a equal distance apart prior to hitting Memphis.

Travis, It does make sense believe it or not. Keep in mind that the grapics were a tool to try and help explain what I think Dave is talking about.
After coming back in the forum tonight and reading his posts, I myself am now confused. The new equation does not make sense to me....might be because it is over my head. I would consider myself an educated guy but....this is now beyond me. I do not know about the Memphis tornado because I have not looked at the paths, or tried to apply his thought process. Sorry.

Jeff, the graphic of the cardioid is in 2D form. The "fat" black lines would represent a tornado or tornado family start location. The distance in length of those black lines represent distance from each tornado or tornado family not tornado path length. All the lines move towards the outer "ring" so as to note the distance in time per say.
I believe that is what Dave was trying to explain with his earlier post but, with his most recent post I have to admit that I have no idea what he is talking about now.
I was on board with his explanation and even sat at work today and tried to apply the math ( that was hell!!!) but it just does not make sense to me now.
I hope I did not confuse anyone by posting the graphics....just thought those might help to give somewhat of a visual.

Originally Posted by Dave Van Grun
In the case of the Greensburg,Kansas, event, the cusp would have been associated with the locations of storms in the panhandle of Oklahoma as this appears to be a sequence of -cos configuration. The Greensburg, Kansas, tornado occurs at the pi location on the curve, again, if I have correctly configured the nature of previous storms in this appropriate series/sequencing!

???????????
Dave, this post really threw me. As someone who not only was on the Greensburg event but also someone who has studied in detail of that event, I am very confused.
Following your process I can see the cardioid effect with the Greensburg tornado. In fact, it does actually "ride the ring" and I actually thought I might be understanding what you were trying to explain but......with your current explaination you would be wrong. The first cusp would not be until near the Protection KS area. The Oklahoma event would have been the start equal to A on the Cardioid and no Cusps would have happened until the next "phase". Which per the effect would have put it in sw Kansas.
Remember, this is per your equation and instruction, this is not something I am simply making up. This does not make sense to me at all now. I have followed the cardioid and you are incorrect. I am sorry, but you do not make senst to me now.

 

[L.B. LaForce]

Oh sweet lordie, Lanny's post finally brings it full circle after reading 2 threads and 8 pages. For the most part, the mathematical terms looked familiar, but im not exactly sure how they fit in with the cardioid, besides the 4 standard cardioid equation: r= (1 +/- cos/sin theta) , but was trying to figure out what the cardioid shape represented. Now understanding we are only using one half of the parametric curve (the cardioid), or a "lobe." Finally we have the half cardioid, and a few cases where the distance between the tornadoes resembles the shape of a cardioid. This is my understanding of it so far, and if its wrong, feel free to correct it.

It would be interesting though to see what, if any other tornadic events follow this cardioid curve. I can also see if I can put together another diagram for people if they would like. it.

 

[Rob Wadsworth]

I completely and totally understand all that has been discussed in this thread, and I concur. ....absolutely. The only thing I'm unclear about is.......what's a douchebag? Thanks for your help in advance.

...You don't wanna know...Is this thread becoming a course in hygene again?!?

Well, Lanny D - maybe you can put together a graphic and see if this does something for this discussion...Or maybe you know someone that can help you do it...The rest of us are waiting with bated breath...

 

[Lanny Dean]

...You don't wanna know...Is this thread becoming a course in hygene again?!?

Well, Lanny D - maybe you can put together a graphic and see if this does something for this discussion...Or maybe you know someone that can help you do it...The rest of us are waiting with bated breath...

LOL....I would certainly try to put something together if I understood what Dave was really talking about now ( he has given and changed the given different equations many times). As I said, at this point this has gone above my head. Honestly I do not have a clue now....I thought I understood and was actually able to follow his "procedure"...I was actually very interested. But, with his latest post, I have to be honest, I do not have a clue.
If you follow his "instructions" then his latest post makes absolutly no sense and contradicts his original post and thought process.
Following the Cardioid graphic I built in Adobe fireworks, You can looke at the curve as it is represented: r= (1 +/- cos/sin theta) Hypothetically of course.
L.B is dead on as far as the half not the full. In laymens terms, it would explain half of the parametric curve...not the whole, at least I think thats what he (Dave) was trying to explain.

But this still does not and cannot explain, for example, the Holly Colorado tornado. This event would have been well behind the cardioid and, at least in my understanding, shows mass chaos. ie...not explainable.

I have heard many people use the word theory in this thread....I have refrained from doing so. The reason for this is because, as we all know, a theory includes a full set of data. Dave has provided nothing as far as data. This is nothing more than a "thought process" IMO.
A thought process that has basically exhausted me the last 3 days.
I am done...you guys try to figure it out. Good luck!

Just wanted to say thanks to everybody for not hamming this thread and letting it play out.

 

[Joey Ketcham]

Lanny, I just have to say man.. you have my utmost respect for being able to comprehend what Dave was saying up until his last post. You by far better understood all of this than the rest of us!

 

[Jim wyman]

Again, My hats off to Lanny for keeping it all together through this muck and mire.....

 

[Bob Hartig]

Amen to that. Thanks for stepping up to the plate, Lanny.

 

[David Wolfson]

If Lanny's deciphering of the Code is right, then absent a rigorous statistical proof IMO it's not an especially profound observation. Outbreaks generally have a pronounced low-level jet out ahead of a trough/wind-shift/front line. This "western" boundary defines a rather abrupt velocity gradient, while the "eastern" boundary is much more gradual. Storms will tend to initiate in the area defined by low-level jet.

Hydrodynamicists must have a name for the phenomenon but the shape should be more that of a wave traversing a surface. The generating function should resemble that of a trochoid where the tracing point is outside the circle. FYI, a cycloid is a special trochoid formed by a generating point on the circle. Here's a nice graphical link I found: http://xahlee.org/SpecialPlaneCurves_dir/Trochoid_dir/trochoid.html.

The coordinate frame of the whole system moves over time toward the "northeast" and storm initiation will tend to translate in that direction as well, distorting the trochoidal shape.

Again, I think there's an interesting exercise for the mathematical physicists among us, but I'm not at all convinced there's much useful insight that could be applied to forecasting. IMO, FWIW.

 

[Jeff Duda]

My thanks also to Lanny. I know he tried, but I feel stupid and just cannot wrap my head around it. Maybe that's an indication it is gibberish!

 

[Shane Adams]

Fortunately, experience chasing tornadoes allows me to take a completely different (and so much simpler) route to reach the same conclusion. IMO this thread is less about the result and more about trying to solve the problem....typical of a "thinker" mentality. Personally, it makes my brain bleed.

I'll go get the tornadoes, and be there waiting when the theorists show up (if they ever get there).

 

[Joshua Nall]

I used to make those Hypotrochoid and epitrochoid patterns when I was a kid. It was some sort of plastic deal that you stuck a pen in then you ran it around this other deal... seems like it was a circle with a bunch of holes in it inside a ring... I don't remember. Made neat designs anyway, haha!

When I first started reading about this I was thinking Mr. Van Grun was talking about predicting where the next tornado would form in reference to where the last one lifted, of those produced by a cyclic supercell. A trochoid thing with the tracing point outside the circle, didn't really have a name for it until Mr. Wolfson just mentioned it.

Then, reading further, I realized that he was talking about where the first tornado of these individual tornado families first initiate. And it is the point at which these individual tornado families first begin that form half of the lobe, just for those still not seeing it. Or I could be really off I guess...haha, If it's not that then I'm lost.

It's going to fit sometimes, seems to me just because we are talking about rotating mass, with lots of little rotating masses, rotating in a rotating mass moving around a rotating mass. With all that rotation you are going to have a lot of goofy curves. I'm impressed by those with the ability to put math to it and understand it...

 

[Jeff Duda]

I used to make those Hypotrochoid and epitrochoid patterns when I was a kid. It was some sort of plastic deal that you stuck a pen in then you ran it around this other deal... seems like it was a circle with a bunch of holes in it inside a ring... I don't remember. Made neat designs anyway, haha!

I believe that toy was called the Spirograph! I remember playing around with it, too.

It's going to fit sometimes, seems to me just because we are talking about rotating mass, with lots of little rotating masses, rotating in a rotating mass moving around a rotating mass. With all that rotation you are going to have a lot of goofy curves.

Even though you said "rotating/tion" six times with "mass/es" five times, that statement made more sense to me than anything else I've read on this topic so far. And I agree with it.

 

[David Wolfson]

Maybe here's where "rotating mass" does make some sense. The first storms will tend to initiate in the area of greatest forcing and instability. If my understanding is correct, that location is generally at the left-front of the Theta-E nose represented by the low-level jet. That's the baroclinic aspect.

There's also, I'd suggest, a barotropic component due to the momentum of the parcels moving relative to each other. Meteorologists must weigh in here. But I would think this adds some environmental ccw vorticity to the localized shear bending which causes storms to rotate. In the standard model this would tend to bias early rotating storm formation a bit "southwest" of where you'd predict from the thermodynamics alone.

Conceptually one can imagine individual parcels having a tendency to loop counter-clockwise in the nature of prolate cycloids as they're "dragged backward". Integrating this mechanism into the full outbreak picture, here is where the point A early initiations might appear to have an involuted inflection like a cardioid curve. Lots of curves have similar inflections, and like I've said I think that a more rigorous analysis would show a poor fit to any particular mathematical curve. Like Jeff and Joshua suggest, there are many processes going on resulting in "a lot of goofy curves".

 

[Shane Adams]

With the continued lack of graphic illustration or practical application example, this is nothing we don't already know. Every comment I've seen in laymen's terms (English) talks about things we already understand. Just seems the "curve" theory is an attempt to break some new meteorological frontier of discovery based on new wording and approach; I've seen zero evidence that any new forecasting method has been uncovered.

I'm with some others, let's see this theory tested in 2010 on real-time forecasts. There are some things in the world (including finding tornadoes) you can't just explain away or solve with math.

 

[Jacob Ferden]

I tried doing some analysis of this today, but quit. Based on the last couple of posts made by Mr. Van Grun, I cannot find any evidence to support his idea. He put the cusp of the cardioid near Buffalo on the Greensburg storm. The paths of the tornadoes do not correlate with this thought process. The EF5 moved in a roughly northeasterly fashion from the Protection area before gradually turning to the north as it neared Greensburg...a long ways away from where he suggested the cusp would be.