this is from the Thursday, March 26 tornado in Mt Gilead, Ohio. The blue target represents where the tornado was at the moment of the screenshot. I was a mile southwest of it but didn’t see it. My question is, does it seem unusual for a tornado to be this far south of the inflow notch?
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tornado south of inflow notch on hook
- Thread starter J Mora
- Start date
JamesCaruso
Staff member
Tornados can and do form in the RFD, which is why escaping the notch to the south and crossing the RFD can be dangerous. This is what happened to the Silver Lining tour van that flipped in 2019.
Luke Penney
EF0
Yeah, I've seen videos of tornadoes clearly forming elsewhere along the horseshoe of the RFD, not just where the notch curls in.
JamesCaruso
Staff member
This post from John Davies about the 2019 accident I mentioned above has a good visual of this
davieswx.blogspot.com
Jon Davies Severe Weather Notes
Jon's blog: Comments and observations about recent tornado/severe weather cases and issues.
davieswx.blogspot.com
thanks that was helpfulThis post from John Davies about the 2019 accident I mentioned above has a good visual of this
Jon Davies Severe Weather Notes
Jon's blog: Comments and observations about recent tornado/severe weather cases and issues.
Dan Robinson
EF5
One of the things we talked about in some previous threads is how the RFD is often curling back inward around the tornado, like a cinnamon roll. When you're looking at RFD from the side at a distance, you see the clear slot, but not this spiraling feature. That's usually only visible if you're right under the meso, but occasionally with more LP updrafts you can see it:
That means with a HP storm, the the primary mesocyclone and tornado could be behind the RFD precip/gust front in an area that appears to be too far south from where it should be. If the above example was a HP storm, the RFD (clear/blue-ish) areas in that "cinnamon roll" would be full of heavy precip, hiding where the tornado actually would be. That risk is even more pronounced with these huge HP storms/mesos where you really can't visually perceive exactly where the tornado is, only radar can give you the clue (and we've talked about how delayed radar can put you behind the situation easily if you're close to the RFD). You have to assume the tornado could be virtually anywhere behind the RFD gust front.
One of the coolest visuals of this process I know of is this video from Tornado Raiders:
That's a classic supercell with a relatively small meso, but if it was HP, the very clear RFD in this example would be wall of heavy, opaque precip.
That means with a HP storm, the the primary mesocyclone and tornado could be behind the RFD precip/gust front in an area that appears to be too far south from where it should be. If the above example was a HP storm, the RFD (clear/blue-ish) areas in that "cinnamon roll" would be full of heavy precip, hiding where the tornado actually would be. That risk is even more pronounced with these huge HP storms/mesos where you really can't visually perceive exactly where the tornado is, only radar can give you the clue (and we've talked about how delayed radar can put you behind the situation easily if you're close to the RFD). You have to assume the tornado could be virtually anywhere behind the RFD gust front.
One of the coolest visuals of this process I know of is this video from Tornado Raiders:
That's a classic supercell with a relatively small meso, but if it was HP, the very clear RFD in this example would be wall of heavy, opaque precip.
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