Lysis
(User)
Fri Jul 22 2005 04:51 PM
Re: hurricane spawned tornadoes

Tornadoes in hurricanes:
Quite often people will say some of the more extreme, erratic damage from charley was caused “by tornados”. This seems to be a common misconception among hurricane survivors and I don’t really understand why (as if they think hurricane force winds are incapable of catastrophic damage (???)). Do note that, statistically, only 2% of all tornadoes achieve greater wind velocities than the strongest hurricanes. At that, hurricane born tornadoes do not generally occur in the actual eye wall of the hurricane itself, but instead in the outer circulation and rain bands. However if you are in the eye, I imagine you have other stuff to worry about, so it probably isn’t much consolation.

On another note, I have often observed little vortices swirling around on the ground, made evident with all the moisture and debris flying around, both in storms I have been through, and on the videos of several storm chasers. I guess the air is just so chaotic that stuff happens. Can you relate to that, Hank?



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