The Cardioid: The Basis for understanding all tornado outbreaks!

[Dave Van Grun]

Where did the tornado watchbox come from, the 20,000 square mile area used by NSSL, for example? It came from the Super outbreak and has been seen as a area maximum. In other words, this is an upper boundary of a large impulse induced by a pressure/air mass impetus of a relationship ratio 1:3 in which an impetus of about 6,650 square miles induced a tornado strike area of 20,000 square miles(incidentally, this was probably rounded up to the nearest 1,000 as I obtained originally 19,085 which I rounded up to 19,100 square miles using 90 statute miles in the relationship

area=.75piA^2

the area of one half lobe of the cardioid. Four times 90 gives the length of the curve containing all four storms Depauw through Xenia(again, from the calculus). In effect, storm outbreaks will therefore cater to

0 is less than"x"is less than or equal to 90

for areal involvement. Something to consider!

 

[Jim wyman]

Again, how do non-chasers become a member of this forum? Use to, in order to be a member here one had to be a chaser or meteorologist. Now it seems anyone with some crazy, whacky idea can become a member.

And how are you going to verify that?

 

[Pat Darrow]

I am eagerly waiting for the next step in this profered theory - namely, the application of fractal theory and mandelbrot sets in determing tornado outbreaks.

 

[Dave Van Grun]

I might remind folks out there that Einstein's ideas were viewed once as "crazy or whacky". And yes I have viewed the movie,TWISTER, several times and i assure you this doesn't get as "whacky" as that. Have you guys ever come to appreciate the work required to take ever closer looks into tornado outbreaks, even the older ones? I have gone back to the early "60's for research and if I can help you guys out to locate that next storm, I will if given enough consideration AND FOR FREE!

 

[Dave Van Grun]

But here is the thing: Do you ever get the feeling that one tornado outbreak is very much like another in more than one respect(tornadoes, duh)? My point is that I look at tornado outbreaks from the '60's onward and I find similarities within the scope of series/sequencing with the cardioid as its basis. If you want to maintain the capricious, isolated, or individualistic attributes of tornadoes that stemmed from the Browning Study of '63, you can but that won't help your storm chasing if that view is incorrect. But if storms can be shown to be grouped phenomena, as this series/sequencing seems to show, then these ideas will help you assess that next family location and time because this cardioid aspect employs both timing and placement aspects to it!

 

[Clarence Bennett]

Joey,

With all due respect, I don't think Dave is on here to brag about how many tornadoes he has seen/intercepted. So what if he want to throw a theory out there. I am actually a bit intrigued by the idea that there could be a "magic" answer in the science of it all. I don't understand why some feel the need to throw dirt on the guy. Welcome to the forum Dave.

 

[Dave Van Grun]

Here is another example! In looking at the Palm Sunday, April 11, 1965 tornado outbreak and using the cardioid as the basis for series/sequencing of storms, my jaw dropped in realizing that the Storms B through R were not random processes but were "slotted" in relative time and location. This process explains the many curiosities of that outbreak which to my mind were never addressed like why Storms J, K, and L continued as very long-lived events when other were so short lived! These storms were eventually impelled by cyclic activity to restrengthen due to their locations and timing of new cycles of activity. When one realizes these things, one can question the random aspect to tornado outbreaks due to this deterministic aspect of cardioid emplacement!

 

[Joshua Nall]

I'm sure Dave Van Grun is smart, anyone that understands calculus is smart. And I'm sure he has a theory, may not apply exactly like he is putting it forth... The break down occurs with his attempt to explain it to those that are not so mathmatically inclined.

A few others here have offered statements concerning cyclical supercells and the relationship the tornadoes they produce have to one another. There is no doubt a pattern or sequence, sometimes.... but we have known that for years. And we can guess about where a cyclical supercell might drop another tornado in relation to the last one it produced... sometimes, certianly not most of the time. The math to figure out just what a cyclical supercell is going to do, even if understood would be more than a supercomputer could handle. Too many factors contributing to the cycle.

 

[Dave Van Grun]

Jim,

If that were true then Storm J would have been stronger thanStorm M of the Palm Sunday tornado outbreak, but alas, the opposite is true!

But if for example you are talking about the May 3, 1999 Oklahoma event you are probably right in that Storm A was strongest of the series/sequence A,B,C,D. But I am more interested in Storm D because it was in the position of being similar to the Xenia tornado of the Super outbreak. My guess is that Storm D did not become a Xenia type storm because of the mechanics of that outbreak. In my view, Storm D would have been the most destructive or F force storm if the predominant aspect of that outbreak was en parellel rather than perpendicular, giving rise to the sequencing that did occur, that of course is my opinion!

 

[Dave Van Grun]

Okay, markov chains, stochastic histories, and so forth all employ methods of random processing. I recommend something more deterministic. YOUR EYES!

 

[Dave Van Grun]

In the March 20, 1976 tornado outbreak, a storm cloud produced then the largest number of tornadoes by a single cell and I attempted to figure out the relationship of those nine tornadoes. I used a hand held calculator, HP 25, to derived the relationship

A exp^-kxt sin Bx

where A,B, and -k are modulators within a damped phase oscillating harmonic. My point is that the cardioid is used to address tornado families while each family may produce tornadoes of a damped oscillating behavior. I might add that this relationship corresponds to the v-component of the Ekman layer equations which itself corresponds to cross isobaric mass transport. Think of it this way, what happens when you remove the exponent from the Ekman spiral equation: Answer, the spiral is reduced to a planar attribute. Could energy associated within a tornado outbreak express that same energy of this cross isobaric mass transport over a planar region? is a tornado outbreak the Ekman spiral over a plane region?

 

[Dave Van Grun]

Is ther anybody on here affiliated with a university, math or science department? If so, much of this material can be addressed by computer science by incorporating the cardioid as patterning agent on any or all tornado outbreaks of noteworthy. I would recommend the Palm Sunday, April 11, 1965 event to subject to analysis!

 

[Joey Ketcham]

I do not know the Martin brothers or are not aware of their history!

Uh huh, sure. And why haven't you answered my question yet. What are your credentials? Who are you? Who are you affiliated with? Do you have a degree in something? Give us something that would make us think you are credible. I asked you this before and you just flat out ignore it.

 

[Patrick Martin]

Maybe I'm a little slow on the uptake, but I'm missing why Mr. Van Grun should be banned or the thread locked. He has certainly presented an idea/theory that, other than being way over my head, goes against the grain, but I'm not seeing how any of the forum rules have been broken or that there are grounds for Mr. Van Grun to be banned.

Let me ask you guys this: You simply don't drive around the country without assessing the deeper aspects to tornado outbreaks?

I will say though that for your last question Mr. Van Gun, challenging why people chase is going to hit a nerve with some. Laying out your credentials and establishing credibility will go a long way for you here. My observation is that many here (such as myself) are not chasing for the purpose of doing deep routed analysis of the how's and why's of tornadogenesis. Your post implies that's the only purposeful reason to chase, which is just not how it really works.

 

[Tim Vasquez]

We are locking this thread because the cardioid methodology was never clarified and was getting into a whole bunch of foggy discussion about geometrical patterns and other jargon. We are going to impose an informal rule where technique proposals that are not described clearly and fully (down to units, algorithm, method, etc) will be locked since they have no foundation for a rational discussion.

On the same token, this thread had about five metric tons of derail. On Stormtrack, you all are welcome to skewer people for not addressing specific assumptions and meteorological considerations, but you are not free to call each other crackpots, douchebags, or whatever (even implied) to shore up your position. I have deleted dozens of posts from this thread that were nothing but derails.

The moderators appropriately decided to halt this thread. I am putting it back up on a read-only basis as I don't think it's our place to censor scientifically-based material, especially such as here where some interesting ideas (both for and against this theory) were brought up.

As a reminder to others, Stormtrack is very welcoming of anyone who wants to discuss technique proposals, rules of thumb, and so forth, but be aware you get into troubled waters when your method is advertised as a holy grail of forecasting. Likewise, the responsibility is on all users to address new ideas with courtesy (not necessarily respect) and knowledge. Meteorology is still a cutting-edge science and there's still plenty of room for new perspectives and insight, not necessarily from the theory itself but from the flow of discussion and debate too.

Tim