tornado south of inflow notch on hook

[J Mora]

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?

 

[JamesCaruso]

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]

Yeah, I've seen videos of tornadoes clearly forming elsewhere along the horseshoe of the RFD, not just where the notch curls in.

 

[JamesCaruso]

This 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.

davieswx.blogspot.com

 

[J Mora]

This 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.

davieswx.blogspot.com

thanks that was helpful

 

[Dan Robinson]

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.

 

[Andy Wehrle]

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:

View attachment 28901

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.

Yeah, that's why I don't play with HP RFD gust fronts. They're called the "Bear's Cage" for a reason. The "bear" could be anywhere in there.

 

[John Farley]

I am struck by the similarity in structure between Andy's first picture and this video capture I got in 2011 in Oklahoma. Not as good as Andy's due to older technology, but nearly identical structure. This storm was producing intermittent tornadoes, including one about 10 miles SW of this spot and another about 12 miles NE. Not where I took this, but if there had been I would not have seen it - which is why I hightailed it east soon after this pic.