Tornado Myths - Page 3

#21 07-28-2007, 04:30 AM

Yes,greenish skies tend to indicate a lot of hail which a lot of times indicates a potential tornado if the hail is large enough.

NWIASpotter · #22 07-29-2007, 01:42 PM

Greenish skies only indicate a presence of hail or large amounts of water in the sky, it is a optical effect.* There is no correlation between a green sky and tornadoes, as they simply do not have a direct connection.* Yes, often a strong storm will have a tornado and then of course be capable of large hail.* But, you have a majority of storms that put down large hail are not tornadic as well.*

Dustin, your last statement is particularly wrong for that reason.* Many of the largest hailstones to ever fall were from storms that were not tornadic at the time to my knowledge.* A green sky does not and cannot indicate a tornado; it can indicate a strong storm; but I've seen light green skies from storms that only contains pea sized hail.* There was just a lot of it...

IL Storm Spotter · #23 09-29-2007, 12:18 AM

On the way to Holiday world in IN one day a few years ago. I was with my mother and my friend and bother and nefew. We were driving and the NOAA kicked on. They were bulletin severe t-storm warnings. Then we drove into green skies and low clouds. I made mom stop and got out and looked, then happen to look right above us...there it was, massive rotation...

well i ended up telling her to move and let me drive, i got that car to 100 MPH very quickly! called the NWS and they issued a severe thunderstorm warning for that area, not a tornado warning and i know for sure it was rotating!!

got to holiday world (themepark) and we couldn't do nuthin because of lightning but about 20 minutes later, we got to go into the waterpark...fun day!

#24 10-01-2007, 04:12 PM

1. Green skies do not depict that there is LARGE HAIL.. it depicts that there is ALOT OF HAIL. We had a very strong storm come over my area... the sky was green.. we got about 3 inches of .75" hail nothing larger.

2. Let's look at this window thing more?? a tornado is a larger area of LOW PRESSURE...so the pressure in your house would be HIGHER. High pressure flows to Low..so this pressure would be trying to escape your house during a very strong event.
If you open the window this will not make any difference unless you live in a completely sealed house (air tight) let's face it there are no houses like this and either way your house will EXPLODE if the tornados pressure is low enough. Opening a window will do NOTHING to stop that..

3. You can't outrun a tornado... this is bull but you shouldn't try this.. unless you have mobile radar and have a good notion on where the tornado is heading. the tornado will move the same speed of the parent storm so if you move FASTER than that parent storm (knowing that you have a good fix on it's location) you WILL outrun it.

4. Laying in a ditch will save your life.. FALSE.. if a tornado is on a direct path to you and you are lying in a ditch (depending on how deep bear in mind) you are going to be SUCKED up and thrown hundreds of feet... don't believe me.. then do some research on the peeps that went through the May 3rd Nado... they will tell you FIRST HAND of their unforgettable adventures with the nado.

Bottom line.. don't listen to the myths.. EDUCATE YOURSELVES so that you are more prepared for the BIG ONE if it should happen.

IL Storm Spotter · #25 10-03-2007, 12:54 AM

I know its a risk but I argue the fact of getting in a ditch rather than in my vehicle. If its a weaker tornado, it aint gonna do much to my vehicle or at least ME...more head cover...in a ditch im open to all debris smacking me!

care to comment?

Patrickkelly · #26 10-12-2007, 08:14 PM

This isn't on par with the topic but.......

On a chase back in 1994 with my old man and i were in SW Kansas chasing a supercell that developed in a flash..... ( not a meterological term ) but when the wall cloud produced a tornado, it reached about half a mile east of the base and then began to rotate CLOCKWISE !!!!

Yes that's right CLOCKWISE.........

All i can think of this cause, despite the fact that this particular tornado was apparently not adhering to the laws of the coriolis force was that possibly the topography or multiple changes in wind direction caused it.......

To this day, it's still a mystery to me.......

Very cool to see though !!!!

#27 10-13-2007, 04:47 AM

Is that possible? Wow, that is amazing dude. How long have you been chasing patrick?

Patrickkelly · #28 10-14-2007, 11:15 AM

Quote:

Is that possible? Wow, that is amazing dude. How long have you been chasing patrick?[/b]

I have been chsing on and off since '92 my most recent trip was in '04 but only for 2 days during which time i only saw one tornado that in my opinion was a very weak F-1 ...... Very slender rope tornado..... hardly anything to really talk about.

#29 10-16-2007, 05:25 PM

QUOTE (StormKing @ Oct 12 2007, 08:14 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Quote:

This isn't on par with the topic but.......

On a chase back in 1994 with my old man and i were in SW Kansas chasing a supercell that developed in a flash..... ( not a meterological term ) but when the wall cloud produced a tornado, it reached about half a mile east of the base and then began to rotate CLOCKWISE !!!!

Yes that's right CLOCKWISE.........

All i can think of this cause, despite the fact that this particular tornado was apparently not adhering to the laws of the coriolis force was that possibly the topography or multiple changes in wind direction caused it.......

To this day, it's still a mystery to me.......

Very cool to see though !!!![/b]

Yes this is possible and RARE! What you saw was a supercell that split!

When the SuperCell breaks into two seperate cells (due to an extremely strong updraft that shears the storm in 2...along with a strong mid level flow [700mb] ) the right cell (strongest) continues to move ESE and is normally the tornadic of the 2 cells. However, there are times that the left storm (weaker) contains a tornado and this tornado will spin ANTI-CYCLONIC (clockwise)

Again this is RARE.. count yourself VERY lucky! I have seen this one time during my career.

CraigM · #30 02-12-2008, 03:09 PM

Mathew Carman wrote:
"The Andover tornado went over a overpass and was filmed. It later did damage to a air force base I think near Witchita KS. The people got lucky and survived. Not something I would do. I dont know if that is where the myth came from."

The "Andover" tornado was a seperate tornado from the one that "went over" the overpass where that famous video was shot. The tornado that 'went over" that over pass was I think an F1 (but I'm not sure) while the "Andover" tornado was an F5.