Tornadoes!

[wrigley23]

What a terrible outbreak of twisters this weekend! From the midwest now moving east.

Makes me wonder. What altitude do most tornadoes reach? It can't be more than a few hundred feet. Therefore, if for some God aweful reason you're flying above one, what conditions will exist? Must be some really scary shear.

Any thoughts, or hopefully not, experiences?

 

[Clyde]

Did some browsing and found out the funnel extends from the base of the storm, usually from a wall cloud. My guess is anywhere from a few hundred to a thousand feet or so above the ground. However, the rotation of the air in the storm can extend very high into the atmosphere.

Lots of tornado warnings today in my neck of the woods. Saw some impressive looking wall clouds and saw my first funnel clouds. Was under the storm looking up (prior to rain falling) and could see the clouds rotating in a counterclockwise direction. It was exciting and a little nerve racking at the same time.

Just had a mean squall line move through. The worst is finally past us.

 

[banned username 2]

I would say that a Tornado would extend many thousands of feet into the storm...

Since Tornado's are typically spawned from Super Cell Thunderstorms which develop within Mesoscale Convective Complex's (Ever see "Meso" on a Radar Summary Chart?) I don't think you'd ever happen to find yourself flying above a tornado... The storms typically have precipitation echo's in excess of 50,000 ft (usually 60,000 ft)...

 

[mudkow60]

The idea, if I remember from my metro days in college, is the the horizontal rotating air gets bent vertically (possibly by friction with the ground). I don't think the funnel exists vertically for more than a few hundred feet, but upper air conditions usually suck just as bad (ummm maybe literally).

Did you have your camera when you were under the rotating cell? I have always wanted to see that. I live in Florida, and we don't get much tornadoes (my bad... we are actually under a Tornado watch currently). I always fly with my camera, but on a no fly day, I saw a water spout over Pensacola Beach, with no camera in hand.

 

[banned username 2]

Ever see MESO TVS HAIL on a radar summary chart?

There were a BUNCH of those across the midwest yesterday... However most were showing echo tops at FL600...

 

[328dude]

Hmmm, gotta love them tornado's. However, living in Oklahoma, they are a very common occurence between May and July with May being the peek season.

So far so good this year. Haven't been hit yet. **CENSORED****CENSORED****CENSORED****CENSORED** sirens are always going off.

If anyone living in Oklahoma and remember the F5 that hit south of OKC 4 or 5 years ago? Echo tops to 71,000.

 

[TonyC]

Hmmm, gotta love them tornado's. However, living in Oklahoma, they are a very common occurence between May and July with May being the peek season.

It's all good with Gary England at the healm.

 

[Sky_Skip]

Ah, the peace and quiet of living in Europe...

 

[Swass]

I live in ICT and man we have seen a few that have just missed us to the south and east. 7 yrs ago we had a small tornado about 1/4 mile west and north of us, took out some tree rows and twisted up a camper pretty good. I saw the Andover tornado that killed all those people several years ago. Took out a whole trailer park. We get 'em pretty often. I dodged three cells in my car two weeks ago that spawned several twisters, my wife was telling me when the coast was clear to keep driving and when to turn north and west off of hwy 54. Crazy I tell you.

 

[DJS]

Tornado altitude

What altitude do most tornadoes reach?

It really doesn't matter from the aviation perspective. The environment required to form the supercell necessary to create a tornado is nowhere you want to fly. It basically requires a lot of vertical motion in conjunction with large-scale wind shear. Sometimes these supercells can have echo tops at 65000 feet. Incredible amount of power.

Pretty cool picture showing the scale of a relatively small t-storm with a tornado.

http://dsc.discovery.com/convergence/tornado/anatomy/anatomy.html

StormTrack online newspaper for storm chasers; I used to be really into buying videos and such, wishing that I lived in the midwest. I've mellowed, though, and have decided I prefer flying in a place where t-storms aren't usually a concern (pacific northwest) and we average only one tornado a year in Washington state.

http://www.stormtrack.org/