A rare fire whirl, also known as a fire tornado, briefly made an appearance near Sao Paolo, Brazil. The swirling fire tornado was reportedly several meters high and brought traffic to a standstill. The Christian Science Monitorexplains how the fire whirl formed.
When there is a warm updraft of air and convergence of fire, say from a wildfire, a vortex of flame can occur. As the heated air from the fire rises, strong air currents cause flame to spin, shaping it into a tornado.
Severe drought and strong winds in Sao Paolo have created conditions which makes fire whirls possible. It has not rained for three months in Sao Paolo. Take a look:
Two stormchasers captured this powerful tornado on video that touched down in western Oklahoma Monday. The tornado destroyed several homes and a barn. Tornadoes are less common in March but there are tornadoes in March every year. This chart here shows the annual tornado trend over the past ten years. Here is the video:
The Weather Channel captures amazing footage of a fast-moving twister in Wyoming. One of the videos lets you look up into the funnel of a tornado - this part is around 14 seconds into the clip.
A NASA-funded study suggests that conditions for the tornado that whipped through downtown Atlanta a year ago were created by heat and energy generated from the urban landscape. The Wall Street Journal reports that NASA's study suggests that tornadoes are likely to become more common. NASA also has a specific report about the Atlanta tornado here.
The graph above shows the number of tornadoes for this year compared to recent years and to the ten-year average. The red line shows the number of tornadoes this year. As you can see the number we have had so far this year is way above recent years and the 10-year average. The U.S. gets about 800 tornadoes a year on average according to a LiveScience article. This year there have already been over 400.
This month is normally the time of year when we just start to experience the most severe weather and tornadoes. The peak for the Southern states is usually March, April and May. Northern states get more tornadoes in the Summer months. We still have a long ways to go in this year's tornado season but it is off to an unusual start. Large outbreaks like the Super Tuesday Outbreak have helped to spike this year's figure.
The graph above is from the SPC's website. You can view a much larger version of it here.
A rare string of powerful February tornadoes killed dozens of people and destroyed homes and businesses in the Mid-South. Wikipedia has been keep track. Currently, they show over fifty tornadoes in four states: Alabama, Arkanas, Kentucky and Tennessee. The death toll stands at 59. On Deadline has some links including this one that shows damage in the hard hit Union University.
You can read some of the reports filed by the National Weather Service here and here.
As you can see here and on the chart on the above right the early outbreak has put 2008 way above the norm for this time of year.
This Nightly News video show footage of some of the damage and investigates why some people didn't know these deadly tornadoes were on the way.
The devastation caused by the powerful EF5 tornado that hit Greensburg, Kansas has now been captured on satellite images. Google blogs that with the help of one of its satellite providers they were able to make available before-and-after imagery.
On May 7th one of our satellite providers, DigitalGlobe, jumped into action and gathered imagery of the region for search-and-rescue teams. Today we are making this before-and-after imagery available as a Google Earth overlay. We think you'll agree that the imagery is quite powerful, and we hope it is a valuable resource for rescue teams, residents, and all of those touched by this natural disaster.
It's pretty clear in the images how tremendous the damage was.
The Associated Press reports that the killer tornado that killed over twenty people in Southern Indiana was a very large strong F3 tornado. Tornadoes of that strength are rare in November.
The deadly tornado that obliterated homes across a swath of southwestern Indiana was unusually intense and fast, packing winds that topped 200 mph as it roared through the night at up to 75 mph, meteorologists said Monday.
The storm's strength, its 41-mile path of destruction and the fact that it struck in the middle of the night in November are all unusual, said Dan McCarthy, warning coordinator at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Storm Prediction Center in Norman, Okla.
The Tornado Project has a web page that explains the Fujita Scale. They also have a list of this year's killer tornadoes. Sunday mornings tornado was the worst so far this year. There is a risk of severe weather in the Midwest today according to the SPC convection outlook.
Update: Here is a link to the NWS Survey indicating that the tornado was an F3. A post on our BloggersBlog.com site has links to local blogosphere coverage and photos.
A powerful tornado has caused extensive damage and killed at least 11 people in Southern Indiana and Kentucky according to a CNN news story.
One resident of the trailer park told WFIE of Evansville she saw a tornado pick up a car with members of her family in it and toss the vehicle into a tree. Brandi Crawley said no one was seriously injured.
"The damage is very, very extensive," said Chad Bennett, an assistant fire chief in Newburgh in Warrick County. He said the area hardest hit was just north of the city limits.
"Now that daylight has come, it is making it a little more easy to see the scope of the damage, and it is very shocking."
Bennett estimated the damage path was about 3/4 of a mile wide and 20 miles long.
Before this tornado there had only been 7 killer tornadoes killing a total of ten people according to this page from the Storm Prediction Center. Tornadoes are not uncommon in November but the strength of this tornado does sound more like the tornadoes typically seen in May and June. The National Weather Service should release data about the strength of this tornado tomorrow.
Update: An MSNBC.com article quotes a local meteorologist who says the tornado was an F3 or higher.
Ryan Presley, a weather service meteorologist in Paducah, Ky., said a single tornado touched down near Smith Mills in western Kentucky and cut a 15- to 20-mile swath through Indiana's Vanderburgh and Warrick counties.
The tornado appears to have been an F3, with winds ranging from 158 mph to 206 mph, and may have been even stronger, Presley said.
Rita has been downgraded to a tropical depression and has moved away from the Texas and Louisiana coast. Unfortunately, she has become a severe weather and
torando threat. This webpage
which lists current tornado and severe weather warnings has been showing a new tornado warning every few minutes. Yesterday, Rita produced 21 tornadoes yesterday and has already exceeded that number today. The Storm Prediction Center provides information about current severe weather and also tracks recorded wind damage reports and tornado reports.
Rita's remnants are currently headed east into Alabama. They are
forecast to evenutally end up in the Northeast as a rain producer.
Hopefully, Rita will not break Hurricane Frances' record of 117 tornado
reports from a hurricane. This NOAA article talks about the tornadoes produced by hurricanes last year:
"The number of tornadoes associated with tropical storms and hurricanes was extraordinary and can be partially blamed for the high number of overall tornado reports," McCarthy said. Tropical Storm Bonnie and five land-falling hurricanes—Charley, Frances, Gaston, Ivan and Jeanne—affected the mid-Atlantic and Southeast states during August and September. Tornadoes frequently occur in the northeast quadrant of northward advancing tropical systems or their remnants.
Hurricane Frances produced the most tornadoes for a tropical system with a preliminarily number of 117 reports. Frances tops Hurricane Beulah, which spawned 115 tornadoes in September 1967. Hurricane Ivan was close with 104 tornado reports, and a total of 16 tornadoes were reported in association with Hurricane Jeanne.
A tornado with winds of at least 130mph has hit the city of Birmingham in the UK damaging homes and tossing cars. The BBC reports that an area south of the city center was badly damaged by the storm.
"Cars were forced to the other side of the road, bins went through car windows. Leaves, tiles and glass were all across the road," Hockley resident Estelle Skidmore said.
"I got home to find one tree crashed onto the front of my house, another crashed from my garden into my neighbour's garden, and chimneys smashed to smithereens after falling off my neighbour's house," said Liz Munro from Moseley.
The strength of the tornado was very unusual for the UK. 130mph would classify the tornado as an F2 on the Fujita scale used in the United States. However, the UK uses a different measurement system. The UK's Tornado and Storm Research Organisation (TORRO) rated the storm as a three or four on their system called the TORRO Tornado Intensity Scale.
WeatherBug has a blog called StormChase 2005 that has been tracking the WeatherBug team's efforts to chase a tornado. Their hard work was rewarded on May 6th when they spotted a funnel emerging from a wall cloud:
Today was a great day! We tracked a storm from its beginnings as a small cumulus cloud crossing the dryline, to its development into a full mesoscale system complete with two funnels that lowered several hundred feet out of a wall cloud before they dissipated back up into the cloud. Fortunately for the farmers and residents of Dundy County, no tornadoes touched down. It was a thrill to behold. Megan's Boston accent finally came out as she kept repeating "This is wicked awesome!" We captured great video and photos. A few are included below and some in my photo album that you can view at right. Take a look!
A new study has found that more tornadoes may originate in long
line storms than previously thought. Many people think that the
tornadoes form in isolated super cells, but a new study suggests that as many as 18% of tornadoes arise from line storms. The researchers studied data from 3,800 tornadoes during the 1998 to 200 period. An article on Live Science reports on the study's findings:
The conventional wisdom is that the tornado threat goes down when the
cells merge into 100-mile-long line storms. But Trapp’s team found this
to be wrong, especially beyond the Alley. For example, about half of
Indiana’s 20 tornadoes a year come from line storms.
Nationwide, 79 percent of tornadoes arise out of cells, whereas 18
percent form from line storms, according to the study, which was
supported by the National Science Foundation and reported in the
February issue of the journal Weather and Forecasting.
The SPC keeps track of U.S. tornadoes on its Monthly Tornado Statistics webpage. The site also includes a list of deadly tornadoes and the number of people killed by them. Last year the United States experienced 1,722 tornadoes -- the most ever recorded in a single year.
A rare string of powerful February tornadoes killed dozens of people and destroyed homes and businesses in the Mid-South. Wikipedia has been 
