![]() ![]() Landspouts tend to be weak and only last for a few minutes but can do some damage before they die out. Waterspouts and landspouts are both considered to be a type of tornado but waterspouts don’t go into the record books unless they hit land as the one in Rogers Park last summer did. Waterspouts and Landspouts – Waterspouts and landspouts may appear to be regular tornados but they can develop when no thunderstorm is in the area. When this happens, the second tornado that forms is called a "satellite tornado." Because they are generated from the same storm cloud they move in tandem and can be extremely destructive. Satellite Tornados - While multivortex tornadoes have smaller vortices rotating around them, sometimes a single storm will produce two tornadoes which spin independently from each other. In addition to wedge tornados and multivortex tornados there are five other types. Some types are generally stronger than others and do more damage. There are several different types of tornados and the amount of destruction they do depends on the strength, where they hit and how much of the area has trees, homes and other facilities that can be damaged. For these reasons, even if the tornado is not exceptionally strong, it will likely do far more damage than a single cone shaped tornado without additional vortices. This is because being a wedge, the tornado is already extremely large, and the multiple vortices further expand the swath of destruction that it leaves behind. When you have a huge, wedge tornado characterized by multivortices that form and don’t die out you can have a major problem on your hands. ![]() A tornados size does not necessarily predict its strength or destructive potential, but a very large storm is more likely to cause significant damage than a small one.Īccording to AccuWeather Senior Meteorologist Guy Pearson, “With a wedge tornado, you’re talking a half-mile wide or greater, and for anything in the path of a wedge tornado, there is going to be some type of damage.” These are enormous tornados and many, though not all, are extremely violent. Wedge is an informal term used when it appears that the tornado is wider than the distance from the ground to the cloud base. They may also form and die out in a matter of seconds with others forming afterwards. Subvortices are usually responsible for the narrow, short, extreme areas of destruction. A multivortex tornado has the main funnel cloud with two or more small, intense subvortices which orbit the center of the larger funnel cloud. Multivortex Wedge TornadosĪccording to Storm Prediction Center, the term vortex is used to refer to the actual funnel cloud which is in contact with the ground and a convection cloud. As it developed, he added that it was a “wedge” tornado. The storm chaser on the video documenting the Danforth storm system Friday, first mentioned that the tornado was a “multivortex” tornado. Given how many tornado watches and warnings we are getting in Chicago and outlying areas of Illinois, I thought it would be a good idea to learn about the terms the storm chaser used as well as the types of tornados that could impact our area. ![]() We currently have several watches in place for the weekend including my county and warnings issued, which indicate that tornados have been spotted, for North central Livingston County, East central La Salle County and Southern Grundy County. ![]() When a tornado touched down in Danforth, Illinois Friday afternoon and I saw a storm chaser’s video of it as he excitedly described what he was seeing, he used terms for the tornado I wasn’t familiar with. Homes were not just damaged many were leveled to the ground. In the past week there have been close to a dozen different tornados reported, with two hitting the suburbs hard last Sunday, resulting in multiple people being taken to the hospital, and as we learned yesterday, one fatality. But that may be because the pandemic wasn’t keeping me so tied to home and focused on the news. I don’t remember so many tornado warnings in Chicago the last several years as we are having this year, other than last summer. ![]()
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