The long-established funnel VS tornado paradigm: flawed?

[Jeff Duda]

Yo dawg, I heard you like posting pictures of a falsenadofunnel from 5 June 2009 so I decided to quote your quote of a picture of that funnel and add my own picture of that funnel to it.

 

[Skip Talbot]

Funny when you see a photo and you realize you must have been standing almost next to the person when it was taken. One of my favorite photos (I've taken myself) was of that funnel/roll cloud. I had it as a background photo on my credit card for a while even.

This was taken about 1-2 minutes before your photo (I have a very similar photo like yours as well). We were standing quite near and really hoping for it to touch down since it would have been absolutely beautiful, but it never did. Our visibility of it was very good so I'm quite sure.

Definitely. It's the same process at work that produces tornadoes I'm fairly sure. Perhaps it just hadn't wrapped enough, the pretornado vortex hadn't acquired enough vorticity, the updraft stretching wasn't strong enough, or the RFD surges weren't strong enough or had the right properties. It's a "half assed attempt" at a tornado. Had we gotten the extra oomph we'd probably have a scuddy EF0 there.

Chasers would then count this is as another tornado for their reports and logs. Is it on the same level as the Goshen Co., tornado that preceded it? No, they're vastly different quality. It's not like that extra little oomph would elevate this to some magical new level. It's the same feature above with just a little extra energy in it. It's still a "bird fart" and from a warning or damage standpoint, I don't think it would even count as a tornado still even if the scuddy funnel touched the ground and we had a 40 mph circulation underneath. The process that produces tornadoes lies across this grey scale gradient of possibilities such that I don't think there really is a definitive line between tornado or not-a-tornado.

 

[Adam Lucio]

Positioning makes all the difference. That same feature looks much more tornado-ish from where I viewed it. It never made it into my official count though....but if I were to present this pic to people who didn't know the event first hand, many could probably be convinced.

 

[Dan Robinson]

There are two angles from which this issue is approached. 1.) what evidence did the tornado leave behind, 2.) did the phenomenon meet the definition of a tornado? It's similar to the F/EF scale debate. Did the tornado leave behind EF-X damage, or did the tornado reach EF-X intensity? The latter can happen without the former. That is, tornadoes often do not leave evidence behind to indicate their true intensity by damage alone. An EF3-strength tornado in the High Plains might not strike any DIs at all and will therefore by strict damage-based evaluation be rated EF0 or EF1. It happens all the time. Does a dusty western Kansas tornado that no one has pictures of and leaves no trace of itself behind mean it wasn't a tornado?

Browse through Youtube and the web and you'll find countless examples of non-condensed tornadoes. I don't even need to try and prove that, we all know it. I'm contending that a persistent, well-developed laminar funnel at least 1/3 of the way down is going to have a damage-capable circulation at the surface far more often than not. The key word is *capable*. That is, if it *were* to hit a weak structure or outbuilding, it would produce rateable damage. The fact that it doesn't hit a DI and leaves no evidence behind is irrelevant to me from a pure definition standpoint. If it's *capable* of damage, it's still a tornado by the very definition of the word. I accept that there are going to be exceptions, of course - but I believe by the preponderance of video and photographic evidence that these outliers are extremely rare.

I'm making this challenge to the status quo: Prove that it is more common for laminar, persistent, well-developed funnels 1/3 or more to the ground to NOT be tornadoes. In the case of such non-tornadoes, I would require that it could be absolutely confirmed by someone very close to it that there was NOT a circulation *capable* of damage on the ground (a dirt whirl, spray on wet fields, small debris). I contend that for nearly all such funnels that weren't counted, it was because the ground under the funnel couldn't be observed due to terrain/trees or every chaser/spotter being too far away.

I'm just not aware of a scientific study that gave us our current protocol, and I think it's fair game to challenge it. If I'm wrong, I'll gladly accept it - but I'm not convinced based on what I see in pictures, videos and my own eyes in the field. So much of our tornado classification paradigms are gray areas, as Skip said. Nature doesn't care about our definitions, sure. I don't want to encourage "counting" non-tornadoes, but I don't think the pendulum needs to swing so far in the other direction that we're not counting fully-condensed funnels to the ground (in that case, Rock KS on June 12, 2004 wasn't a tornado), or circulations that are *capable* of damage. It's not about personal tornado counts, just calling things in nature what they are.

 

[rdale]

If my scientific process memory is still good at this age I think you have it backwards. Prove that well-developed funnels 1/3 or more to the ground ARE tornadoes. I'm not sure how such a study would work though, because you would need to get pictures of funnels only 1/3rd of the way down and show that at the very same time it was doing damage.

But remember the protocol you're "challenging" is just a shortcut for real-time reporting purposes. Even if you see a funnel 90% of the way down, and report it as a tornado, it is not a tornado unless it does damage. So if you somehow created a study that "proves" 33% is far enough down, all that does is loosen the reporting terminology in real-time. It still doesn't make it a tornado, because a tornado MUST do damage.

 

[Adam Lucio]

Since when does a tornado have to do damage? I thought the definition was ground contact.

 

[rdale]

How would you determine that the winds were in contact with the ground if there's no damage?

 

[Kevin Rimcoski]

Typically if there's circulation directly under the rotating funnel. A tornado does not need.to be fully condensed to be on the ground. The tornado is the wind, not always condensed fully

 

[ChristofferB]

I have been watching season 4 of Storm Chasers recently and I always react when they say: "There's a tornado on the ground! On the ground!!"

Regardless if that June 5th roll cloud/funnel/justnado would have become a bird fart of an EF0.01, it would have been so beautiful in that particular spot!

 

[Skip Talbot]

How would you determine that the winds were in contact with the ground if there's no damage?

I think by damage, rdale means interaction of winds with the surface, including debris clouds, and particulate sprays. Some may not think of this as damage, but I'm assuming rdale is lumping those in here. Obviously a tornado is still tornado even if it doesn't hit "x object".

Prove that it is more common for laminar, persistent, well-developed funnels 1/3 or more to the ground to NOT be tornadoes. In the case of such non-tornadoes, I would require that it could be absolutely confirmed by someone very close to it that there was NOT a circulation *capable* of damage on the ground (a dirt whirl, spray on wet fields, small debris). I contend that for nearly all such funnels that weren't counted, it was because the ground under the funnel couldn't be observed due to terrain/trees or every chaser/spotter being too far away.

I agree with this principle, but I don't I think it can be put into practice. Meaning yes, most funnels probably are tornadoes, but we can't use this as a reliable means for reporting severe weather.

If tornadoes generally form from the bottom up, your definition of tornado includes any circulation from surface to base, and your funnel cloud has surface based inflow, then I'll agree, you've got a tornado, no matter how high that funnel is or how far condensed it is. I also agree that most well formed funnels we see are actually (weak) tornadoes. They have all the properties of the process that makes up a tornado, they may just be at some arbitrarily lesser level of intensity.

"Well formed, laminar"... that's the problem with putting this into practice. You're shifting the problem of identifying ground contact to identifying funnel clouds. Some cases are obvious, yes, but other cases are not. Some cases are very misleading. We could go ahead and tally the obvious cases sure, but when we start getting into those iffy funnel clouds, we're going to have some real issues differentiating between tornadic and non torndic. It doesn't matter where you draw the line either. Even if you say, "well, only the most obvious cases..." we're going to have cases that look pretty good that might not make that cut which become the new point of contention.

I think the surface interaction is still a better indicator here for most contexts since it's easier to identify and more likely to validate your tornado.

I'd also argue that the burden of proof still rests on the spotter to prove they have a tornado, rather than the inverse to prove that their funnel is not a tornado or that most well formed funnels are tornadoes. This is because it might be impossible to properly differentiate between funnel and not a funnel, or that the funnel is surface based and under going the same process as a tornado.

 

[Rodney Nonamaker]

Craziest funnel I've ever witnessed was this photo from May 10, 2014 2 miles west of Latham, KS. Had good rotation to it, but I couldn't verify it ever hit the ground.

Video started shortly after the photograph taken.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UAwfUdI_UUE

 

[Rick Schmidt]

If I see a brief dust WHIRL under a funnel/rotation/wall cloud/suspicious movement/lowering/etc., in my mind it is a tornado, and no explanation or 'other' definition would change my mind, since that is THE definition of a tornado. It does not matter what the feature above it looks like, nor does it matter how 'weak' it appears above.

 

[rdale]

If I see a brief dust WHIRL under a funnel/rotation/wall cloud/suspicious movement/lowering/etc., in my mind it is a tornado, and no explanation or 'other' definition would change my mind, since that is THE definition of a tornado. It does not matter what the feature above it looks like, nor does it matter how 'weak' it appears above.

Exactly. And if you see a funnel 2/3rds of the way down and you are under it and don't feel a breeze, it's not a tornado.