What would happen if two significant tornadoes "merged"

[L Dobson]

This may seem like a stupid question but I've always thought of it. Now when I mean two tornadoes merging I mean two separate tornadoes such as what occurred in Pilger Nebraska in 2014. What do you think would happen?

 

[Paul Knightley]

There are quite a few well-documented events where tornadoes 'merge' - quite often in a cyclic supercell. If you look on YouTube you can find examples. Nothing especially dramatic occurs, but when it was first observed it did then explain how some long damage tracks actually occurred - not by one long-track tornado, but by several tornadoes undergoing a merger process.

 

[mikedeason]

Hesston 1990 always jumps to the forefront of my mind.

 

[Dan Robinson]

As Mike said, Hesston-Goessel (March 13, 1990) is a classic, an F5 merging with another soon-to-be F5:

 

[Mark Kibler]

As Mike said, Hesston-Goessel (March 13, 1990) is a classic, an F5 merging with another soon-to-be F5:

That is amazing!

 

[Seth Price]

I would think that most of the time, you don't so much have two tornadoes "merging" so much as you have a really large area of rotation, and two visible suction vortices in a multiple vortex tornado.

It mostly sounds like a fluids problem I don't wanna do.