Video of Storm Causing Damage in Chile: Tornado or Straight Line Winds?

[Mike Krzywonski]

http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=7368909n&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+cbsnews%2Ffeed+%28CBSNews.com%29

Appears to be a possible tornado as the path of flying debris changes direction toward the end. Any thoughts?

 

[Jeff Duda]

Nice video. I'd have to say that is a tornado. I've never been in a hurricane, but I've also never seen that much debris fly around in just straight line winds. Also I do see what appears to be an anticyclonic circulation going past towards the end of the video.

 

[Michael Thomas]

Here is a sounding from Puerto Montt which is several hundred km's away from Villarrica-

http://weather.uwyo.edu/cgi-bin/sou...AR=2011&MONTH=06&FROM=0712&TO=0712&STNM=85799

Tornadoes occur reasonably regularly around the south-west coast of Australia/west coast of New Zealand in similiar conditions (low CAPE/strong shear). I would suspect that it was a tornado given the time of year (cool season) and presence of strong vertical shear. One thing though, being in the southern hemisphere wouldn't that be cyclonic rotation?