types of tornados

[Nicholas_Scherber]

i here alot of people talking about different types of tornados (elephant trunk, stovepipe...), but have never really found any explanations on what any of them are. I think i have it mostly figured out but thought it wouldn't hurt to here what other people had to say.

 

[Jason Boggs]

Never said I was a great artist, but this should give you an idea of the different shapes of common tornadoes.

 

[Mark Blue]

Here's a good place to start: FAQ. This online FAQ was written by Roger Edwards of the SPC and probably has most of the information you are looking for.

 

[Bob Hartig]

There's a book titled "Under the Whirlwind" by Arjen and Jerrine Verkaik that has a page or two of photos depicting various shapes of tornadoes. It's a fun little book, self-published by the authors, that's partly a chronology of a tornado day in Ontario and partly a sort of tornado survey course--a bit dated now, but unique and well worth the money if you can get it.

Re tornado shapes, one thing to bear in mind is that the formal terms, if that's what they can be called, tend to be somewhat subjective in real-life application. The term wedge in particular refers to a tornado that is as wide or wider than it is tall; in actual usage, though, the word frequently is used to describe any very large tornado, some of which I'd personally think of as more a super-big cone than a wedge.

 

[David C Watson]

Don't forget the multi-vortex tornado