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Wedge or Stovepipe?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Mike Hollingshead
  • Start date Start date
Those photos with people in the grandstands are sure creepy enough ... imagine going to the track to see something like THAT coming for you. I can see the stovepipe-ish central vortex, but think I would have to classify this as a wedge myself. The circulation extends to quite a radius around the funnel ... but in just looking at it would say that this is condensation funnel all the way out to the edge. Possibly dual vortices with one in the core of the tornado surrounded by another maybe (ala "Twister")? Really don't know ... whatever the case, those photos are wild.
 
To clear up my point in this. I wasn't asking if the overall outside shape was a wedge or a stovepipe. I was asking it just wondering if anyone seen the stovepipe shape inside...that was it. I would certainly say the outside shape is a wedge(the one everyone clearly sees) and the inner is a stovepipe. If anyone wants to say what they think the outer shape is and if it is or isn't a wedge have at it, but that wasn't my point I guess.
 
For me, a bona fide wedge needs to be much wider than it is tall - almost to the point that, at a great enough distance, you wouldn't be able to tell if it's an actual tornado or wall cloud dragging the ground.
Click to expand...

I talked with a guy yesterday who watched this tornado from his office at ~ 68th & Grover street, he was looking NW and said “it looked just like a really dark cloud dragging on the ground â€￾, “ I kept looking for the tornado everybody was talking about, but never saw itâ€￾, “the only reason I knew something was not right, was that a child’s plastic swimming pool came sailing by, just like a Frisbeeâ€￾.

So I guess at this point it must have reached the “wedgeâ€￾ state.
 
I’d say wedge. But I clearly see the “stovepipeâ€￾ you’re talking about. Without video there’s really no way to tell if the stovepipe thingy is the main tornadic circulation or just a transient vortex in a larger multi-vortex wedge. But heck, “wedgeâ€￾ and “stovepipeâ€￾ are not technical definitions. A tornado can take many shapes, and we have words for only a few of them, and the terms we have are only approximations. Tornadic events don’t always fit into preconceived categories. They’re transitory and ephemeral beasts, shifting from one shape to the next faster than we can classify them. I agree it’s a bit silly to obsess over this kind of thing.

It’s all subjective anyway, and what looks like a wedge from one viewpoint might appear as a stovepipe from another. Consider a classic black wedge, much wider than it is tall, fitting the “wedgeâ€￾ label to perfection... Suddenly the meso begins to occlude, dryer air wraps around, and the cloud base quickly erodes so that the same tornado is now much higher than it is wide (but still the same width!) Our perception does a double take, and what appeared to be a classic wedge is now revealed to be a very large stovepipe. I have seen this happen on video many times. The tornado itself doesn’t really change shape, but it’s surroundings (and our perceptions) do. The visibilty, the amount of debris, the position of wrapping rain curtains, the height of the cloud base, all these rapidly changing things affect the perceived shape of the tornado. Arguing about a tornado’s true shape seems kinda pointless to me - although it’s true I’m enjoying this discussion, so maybe it isn’t. :wink:

I have to say that many tornados (and sometimes the storms they spawn from) seem to me to have a unique “characterâ€￾ about them that’s maintained throughout their lifecycle. The tornado (or storm) may change its shape (or mode), but somehow you can always tell it’s still the same event. Think of how many of us can immediately identify certain storms from a picture, regardless of when and where in the storm’s evolution the photo was taken. There is just an inherent uniqueness to some tornados that trumps all variations in physical appearance. They go from tube to stovepipe to wedge to rope, but the “characterâ€￾ remains the same. Do you know what I’m talking about? I can’t really explain it any better... I don’t know, perhaps I’m anthropomorphizing (is that a word?) when I shouldn’t be. But for me the character of a storm is more important thing than whether or not it conforms to a category like wedge or stovepipe. On the other hand, concrete verifiable terms like “mile-wideâ€￾ are obviously useful... I dunno, interesting topic.

I doubt if there ever will be any definitive rules for what’s a wedge and what isn’t. These terms are all basically chaser slang. If enough people say it’s a wedge, then I guess it’s a wedge. Or... “I may not be able to define ‘Stovepipe’, but I know one when I see one!â€￾
 
:shock: If you havent watched alot of tornado videos or have had no experience lol this could be a dust devil ;-) JK, alot would say its a Wedge, but if you look at the picture more then once you can see a Stovepip figure in there with Swirling Debri making it look more like a wedge


Stovepipe to me. :wink:
 
Man can you believe the Tri State tornado moved at up to 73 mph and was up to a mile wide with a continuous damage track of 291 miles?! Chase that!!!
Click to expand...

Oh no.....


hehe
 
Man can you believe the Tri State tornado moved at up to 73 mph and was up to a mile wide with a continuous damage track of 291 miles?! Chase that!!!
Click to expand...

The Tri State tornado is amazing in almost every respect. I wish there would have been such a thing as chasers back then. The crazy thing is that if that situation ever duplicates itself today we would literally have chasers all across those three states making intercepts on the SAME tornado (if the thing was moving at a halfway chaseable speed, that is). 73 mph is definitely a little too quick for my blood - it made the 291 mi. trip from Missouri through Indiana in THREE hours!
 
Looking at those color photos, I'm seeing not only a stovepipe in the same photo as the one Mike H. poster already, but a conical funnel in the first one and a kind of stubby, slope-sided stovepipe (which I guess means it isn't a stovepipe) with a consolidation of debris on the right of the entire visible tornado in the third. Without adjusting the contrast, you can see these where the shading in the funnel is darkest. Changing contrast might bring them out more. Again, they're faint, but there, IMO.
 
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