Two wedge tornadoes at the same time?

[Mike Hollingshead]

After looking more at last Wednesday's tornadoes in sw NE it got me wondering. Are there any examples out there for 2 wedge tornadoes next to one another? Or even stories of that? All I can think of is one Al Moller was talking about on a video of Sam Barricklow's during a chaser convergence. It was in reference to the June 15, 1992 northern KS event(think that is the date). I can't think of any images or video of such a thing.

I wonder because the storm southwest of Grant NE the other night was awefully darn close to doing that.

Here is an image of Matt Kassawara and Chris Rozoff's chase:
http://gauss.atmos.colostate.edu/~rozoff/chasing/28mar07/t4698.jpg


I didn't have as good of view around the same time...
http://www.extremeinstability.com/stormpics/2007/07-3-28-1.jpg

Neither of us had good views the entire time, so who knows how this unfolded or what else they looked like. I remember looking south after I found a spot and seeing a crazy looking stout, fat stovepipe doing some wild swinging motions. That was after the above views. It seemed like somehow the two areas merged and that happened. Then it was like they lost the balance after "colliding" and went into the multivortex action for a bit, before gaining it again into the one wedge west of Grant. Did anyone see how it unfolded after that, before the main wedge west of Grant? Seems odd to have a wedge se of another tornado in general, especially when the other isn't just a stovepipe kind of going around, but having a large size to it too.

 

[Danny Neal]

I think the closest I have seen or heard of was the "twin tornadoes" of 1965 Palm Sunday outbreak. I think it was in Elkhart, Indiana if I am not mistaken. Were not exactly \___/--\___/ side by side but were rather respectable. I have heard that these were both dual tornadoes within 3/4 of a mile of each and then I have heard that they were just one big tornado revolving around e/o.

http://www.crh.noaa.gov/iwx/program_areas/wxpics/tornado/Huffman.gif

 

[Mike Hollingshead]

Yeah that was one of the only images I came up with, but never realized they were both THAT big till seeing it again. That's pretty crazy.

 

[Danny Neal]

That would be pretty crazy to see those 2 tornadoes sustain themselves and rotate around each other....I am not going to lie, I would be shaking while filming at that power. Would be like a giant blender. I too have heard of the 92 kansas event. I am trying to jog my memory of any tornado videos I have seen.....

 

[Aaron Kennedy]

Anyway, I imagine this event was analogous to satellite tornado events, but in this case, both tornadoes were visually of similar and appreciable magnitude, which is probably fairly rare.

If I recall correctly, the Harper County storm on May 29th, 2004 had a stovepipe with a satellite wedge for a short time period. That's the closest case I can think of.

 

[Brian Stertz]

The multiple wedge situation certainly is a very rare instance...the March 13th, 1990 Hesston KS violent tornadogenesis is probably the most extreme case where you had 2 very damaging/violent tornadoes in very close proximity to each other...both were F5 tornadoes. Yes that Elkhart IN tornado photo remains to this day a real wild example of very large multiple vortices. I remember seeing photos of the April 10, 1979 Wichita Falls TX tornado also having very large multiple vortices as it moved into Clay Co.

 

[John Peters]

The multiple wedge situation certainly is a very rare instance...the March 13th, 1990 Hesston KS violent tornadogenesis is probably the most extreme case where you had 2 very damaging/violent tornadoes in very close proximity to each other...both were F5 tornadoes.

I was going to mention this event. I read a fairly detailed case study on the Hesston tornado a while back which included some photos of the twin tornadoes . I'll see if i can dig it up and post the link.

Edit: Here is the link: http://ams.allenpress.com/archive/1520-0477/75/6/pdf/i1520-0477-75-6-1007.pdf

 

[Mike Hollingshead]

I was reviewing some cruddy video I had and did notice that those two tornadoes did rotate about one another (perhaps merging - merging vortices should rotate about each other through their mutual advection of one another). Then, I was digging around and came across this link at Storm News, which contains images of these particular tornadoes by Dr. David Dowell.

http://www.rap.ucar.edu/staff/landolt/2007mar28/

He has a whole sequence of jpg files showing a lot of the evolution of these twin tornadoes (in fact, look for the jpgs entitled twins**.jpg) His documentation of this event is incredible. It does seem to show that they rotate around one another and close in on one another. My preliminary hypothesis - this was a merger event and when the vortices finally emerged (perhaps higher up in the cloud before merging at the surface) and then the new victorious vortex perhaps went on to become the multi-vortex tornado that became a wedge. Perhaps most of the merging was occurring higher up in the low-level mesocyclones rather than at the tornado level? It's hard to say, but this was probably about the coolest thing I could ever imagine seeing in a storm chase. Also, Justin Walker also has some documentation of these tornadoes at
http://www.tornadostalker.com/2007/28march2007.html

Anyway, I imagine this event was analogous to satellite tornado events, but in this case, both tornadoes were visually of similar and appreciable magnitude, which is probably fairly rare. I cannot think of any other events mostly because I am a poor tornado historian. I hope to learn of similar events to compare with how Wednesday's event unfolded.

Yes! http://www.rap.ucar.edu/staff/landolt/2007mar28/twins11.JPG
That is what I saw and was talking about when I first pulled over. It looked crazy. I was like, oh my god that big thing looks wild, not because of size exactly but the motion. My still start right after that.

 

[Matt Ziebell]

From past readings about the June 6-7, 1993 tornado event in NE and SD, I'd say there's some merit in there having been two closely-spaced wedge tornadoes in Buffalo County, NE the night of the 6th and possibly another set the next day in Southeast SD. However, the tracks don't favor just one cell being responsible in either case...so that's what makes last week's event even more unique. Looking at some of the June '93 footage that is out there, both days the cloud bases were practically hugging the ground making it too easy for the half dozen wedges that were reported!

 

[Brian Stertz]

Jeff Piotrowski and I chased that crazy night in June '93 when the inflow winds were damaging (well over a sustained 55mph) and lcls were rock bottom in Buffalo Co. NE. There was a sizeable tornado near Amherst that David Hoadley had a close encounter with. We caught a large F3 tornado near the town of Riverdale that was on the southeast flank (so it seemed) of the wedge Amherst tornado. I do believe this represented the strongest inflow I have ever been in as a chaser. The tornado that resulted was a fairly substantial stove pipe with a smaller satellite tornado whipping around the periphery of the large stovepipe.

 

[MatthewCarman]

Yes these 2 sisters were EF3's if I am correct? Was this in Ohio? 1965 Palm Sunday outbreak. This has to beat all other twister sisters

 

[Jim Tang]

Matthew, those two tornadoes twins were in Dunlap, IN. Both I think were rated F4.

When I saw this topic, the first thoughts were, Hesston 1990, the above, and another one which isn't coming into my mind right now. Theoretically two wedge tornadoes next to each other isn't impossible... all we need is low lcl's and a cycling storm could easily produce two very large tornadoes.

 

[Danny Neal]

Yes these 2 sisters were EF3's if I am correct? Was this in Ohio? 1965 Palm Sunday outbreak. This has to beat all other twister sisters

See second post.

 

[Bob Hartig]

The Palm Sunday "twins" is probably the most famous and eerie tornado photograph ever taken, but it's actually just the fourth in a six-shot photo sequence taken by Elkhart Truth photographer Paul Huffman. If you follow the whole sequence, you can clearly see a bowl-shaped cloud with a single small funnel that grows and intensifies, morphs into the double-vortex structure you see in the above post, then becomes obscured by rain as it moves off to the northeast.

The tornado obliterated most of the Midway Trailer Park approximately two miles south of Dunlap; the photos were taken from a distance of around a quarter mile from the trailer park. A friend of mine lived there and experienced the tornado at ground zero.

 

[JP Santiago]

This might sound like a dumb question, but are all satellite tornadoes anticyclonic? I get the impression from what I have read that anticyclonic tornadoes are not as large/intense as a normal tornado.

I ask as if it's possible that the other wedge could be anticyclonic.......