When did the "wedge" definition change?

[David Drummond]

The definition forever and a day or a wedge tornado has always basically been "a tornado that appears wider than it is tall".

http://www.spc.noaa.gov/faq/tornado/binger.htm

I have seen an awful lot of people and reports calling tornadoes a "wedge" that just simply didn't fit that definition.

When did it change?

 

[Jeff Snyder]

I've noticed some of this in years past, but I try to ignore it. Other descriptors like "elephant trunk", "cone" and "stovepipe" may be a bit more ambiguous, but a "wedge" is relatively easy to classify -- it must be wider than it is tall. Some of the "wedges" I've heard about the past 10 days looked more like fat cones or "barrels" with a 1:1 aspect ratio or taller than wide (i.e. 1:1.5 with width:height).

 

[Dave Gallaher]

Glad to see someone with more authority than myself bringing this up. I've also wondered when the term became relative. Big cones are almost always labeled as wedges in recent reporting.

 

[Shane Adams]

I've always wondered where the chaser definition of 'wedge' came from in the first place, because it makes no sense. A "wedge" is wider at the top and comes to a point at the bottom; i.e. a "funnel". I've seen several varieties of objects in the world that were referred to as "wedges" and none of them look like mile-wide tornadoes.

 

[joel ewing]

I can definitely remember during the 80's, (and oh God, how I hate remembering the 80's) in the old paper-magazine version of Storm Track, Dave Hoadley (I'm 99% sure it was Dave) had a full page devoted to tornado shapes and definitions. The page was broken down into perhaps a dozen small boxes...with Dave's hand-drawn tornado types and their respective names.
IMO, the name "wedge" probably got started in the early Tim Marshall era...or perhaps prior to that even. That term may have been bandied about in the earliest days of UONorman's chase team(s). This would have been in the late 70's....I'm guessing. Gene Moore....Tim....Dave Hoadley...any of you able to shed some light on this??

 

[Greg Stumpf]

but a "wedge" is relatively easy to classify -- it must be wider than it is tall.

And to clarify it even more - we defined a "wedge" as a tornado whose width on the ground is wider than the distance from the ground to the cloud base.

I've also kind of noticed that the de facto distance that "in-close" chasers get to a tornado these days is "100 yards", even though it is quite clear (to me, at least) from video that the tornadoes are farther away than 100 yards. What is the average distance between rural telephone poles? I little Googling I did says 200 feet, but I've never actually measured the distance. That would be an easy guide for estimating your distance to the tornado. 100 yards would be 1.5 telephone poles away.

 

[Kiel Ortega]

You know, I think Trivial Pursuit ruined it all...

Also, don't forget about the potatoes...

I've never seen a tornado look like that (or look so delicious)!

Yeah, I see the issue. Greg and I have had numerous conversations about this...mis-classification/identification of tornado size and shape. Several times I've seen "large tornadoes" turn out to be ropes.

Now that I've been thinking about it, I'm gonna start calling cones "Trivial Pursuit wedges" and ropes "twisty straws."

 

[Mikey Gribble]

The closeness thing is what I've noticed over the last 10 days. I haven't noticed any false wedge reports, but then again I don't read much of the report threads.
I do remember one report in particular where they mentioned being ridiculously close to the tornado (I think it was within 100 yards). When I saw the video and pics though they were a solid 200-300 yards away (I also used the telephone pole method). I think it is fairly normal for some people to think they were closer than they actually were. 200 yards is about as close as you can get to a big tornado before **** hitting the fan becomes a real possibility. In some of the "I claimed to be closer than I actually was" people's defense, video usually makes you look farther away than you really were.
These tornadoes from the Garfield county storm where I was about a quarter mile away IMO (maybe a little further than that in the second picture), but there are no poles so it's tough to judge. I have seen a few pics this week where people were much farther away than that and they were reported at less than a hundred yards. Just click on the pictures to enlarge...





And here is the only wedge I've reported in the last week and although it is close to the stove pipe category IMO, it is certainly wider than it is tall and I would call that a wedge every day of the week.

 

[Greg Stumpf]

And here is the only wedge I've reported in the last week and although it is close to the stove pipe category IMO, it is certainly wider than it is tall and I would call that a wedge every day of the week.

Mikey, we use to debate "wedgeness" a lot in the past. Sometimes, it isn't very clear in pictures or even in person where the tornado funnel actually "enters" the cloud base. In the case you show above, this looks like the intermittently-large tornado that was SE of Douglas OK on 5/24/08 (based on the name of your file), taken from nearly the same location as me. If you look at the two annotated figures here, either of these could be representative of what was happening:

Was the tornado actually attached to the rear part of the occluded low-level mesocyclone? This is where the cloud bases are typically lower since it is ingesting the precip-laden air next to the main core, and typically trails off into the precip as a classic tail cloud, which we observed before it became rain-wrapped. Or was the tornado centered within the precip ball, where, trying to account of 3D perspective, the cloud base was higher than the base observed further behind? Hard to say. In either event, it was a significant tornado, and it was larger than this at times (but not 1 mile wide as KFOR kept exclaiming).

 

[Greg Stumpf]

Yeah, I see the issue. Greg and I have had numerous conversations about this...mis-classification/identification of tornado size and shape. Several times I've seen "large tornadoes" turn out to be ropes.

I think the real issue here is that chasers and spotters who get real close to tornadoes lose their perspective, and because the tornado is tall, they report it as large. Or, through foreshortening with telephoto lenses, the tornado can appear much larger (and closer) than it actually is. It's also a function of the media hyping up the event. Case in point, Jim Reed's encounter on foot was reported in the media as a "massive" tornado. It was a dying landspout - hardly "massive".

Why is this important? Because, when spotters or chasers mis-characterize a tornado as "large and extremely dangerous" and it doesn't fit that category, then the NWS can be fooled into issuing enhanced worded warnings and statements (e.g., tornado emergencies) for events that do not warrant these descriptions.

 

[Dustin Wilcox]

Does the whole wedge debate really matter in the world of making a tornado report? I highly doubt the NWS or local media is going to treat the situation any different if you say barrel tornado instead of wedge tornado, if someone says they seen a Wedge tornado, I don't think wow, they seen a tornado that was wider than it was tall, I simply say wow, they seen a big freakin tornado, to me Definition of Wedge tornado = big Freakin tornado. As for the distance thing, I don't recommend using the powerpole method, if your 100yards from a tornado and are using nearby power poles as your measurement your going to have problems. Again does it really matter if someone says they were 200 yards away when it really might have been 300? I can't think of a scenario in which it would matter...

 

[Greg Stumpf]

Does the whole wedge debate really matter in the world of making a tornado report? I highly doubt the NWS or local media is going to treat the situation any different if you say barrel tornado instead of wedge tornado, if someone says they seen a Wedge tornado, I don't think wow, they seen a tornado that was wider than it was tall, I simply say wow, they seen a big freakin tornado, to me Definition of Wedge tornado = big Freakin tornado. As for the distance thing, I don't recommend using the powerpole method, if your 100yards from a tornado and are using nearby power poles as your measurement your going to have problems. Again does it really matter if someone says they were 200 yards away when it really might have been 300? I can't think of a scenario in which it would matter...

Agreed. Nit-picking distance and size probably doesn't matter when talking about differences such as the one you describe above. However, I've seen several "100 yards away" videos where it is clear to me the tornado is a 1/2 mile away or more. Does this make a difference? Obviously not to those that choose to hype it up. In another recent example, a television chaser appeared to be about 1/4 mile from a tornado the other day (which, by all means, is already close), and exclaimed to be "literally feet away from it". ...about 1300 hyped up feet. Does that really matter? Perhaps, considering it was being mis-reported on television in the interest of ratings more so than the interest of warning the viewers, IMO.

However, when reporting tornado size, we've seen numerous "extremely large and dangerous" ropes and cones reported this year - that does matter to the NWS, given reasons in my previous post. Chasers and spotters should exercise professionalism when they are hooked into the integrated warning system and avoid the hype, or else their reports might eventually get ignored.

 

[Mikey Gribble]

Not sure exactly what you are asking Greg, but the first picture where you drew the cloud base line is accurate. I was moving North when I took that picture and I parked directly east of the tornado as it moved towards me and became rain wrapped. I got pretty close to it and I know the base was very low to the ground.
I agree that it is kind of stupid to nitpick reports. I really don't care. I just wanted to make sure that my reports weren't getting lumped into the "false" category because they were definitely accurate. At the same time I do agree that if you are going to report to the NWS you need to be accurate on the description of the tornado. There are ton of "large" tornadoes reported that weren't that big. Even being slightly off when reporting to NWS isn't that big of a deal IMO. So long as you convey that there is a tornado and give some sort of a description, that will get the job done.
I can already tell where this thread is going. To each their own. I don't care how somebody else reports the storm and others shouldn't either IMO.

 

[Greg McLaughlin]

I find it interesting how the talk about how close people are to tornadoes has come up. I have been talking about that myself the past few days. After the tornado on May 24th (EF2 8miles WNW Hennessey, OK) I wanted to be sure how far Justin and I were from the tornado as we were claiming to have been 150-200 yards away. As Mikey Gribble pointed out video makes things seem further away than they typically are due to how camera lenses give a wider view of things.

This past Saturday Justin and I went back to the tornado path from the 24th and actually played our video on the laptop as we drove down the road we had chased it on. We were completely blown away at how close we actually were. At one point we feel we were less than 150 yards away. Obviously we felt comfortable being that close as the tornado was on a steady track and we had a quick escape back to the west as we followed closely behind it. It is easy to get carried away when trying to judge how close one actually is to a tornado. I had never heard of the telephone pole = 100 yards rule. I will remember to use it in the future.

Also, after learning what the definition of a wedge is, I have mistaken some tornadoes to be wedges in the past that were not, i.e. June 1, 1999 Checotah, OK F3 with 350 yard width. This tornado was nothing more than a really fat cone.

 

[Shane Adams]

Interesting thread....but can anyone tell me why fat tornadoes were called wedges in the first place? A standard "wedge" shaped object, in any other application, is tapered at one end.