quote:

Originally posted by ownymcown the darkness makes the air cold, hence making it more likely to form a cone of death, which is also know as a twister. twisters are similar to tornados except they can only occur at night, a tornado is more powerful than a twister because is it powered by the sun, simple really...

fuck me that was amazingly wrong

as far as the final scene is concerned:

think of this, tornadoes occur at 24 hours a day; but your stereotypcial/standard textbook tornadoes usually occur actually during the afternoon/early evening off of a supercell.

supercells are often discrete entities that are surrounded by clear skies all around them.

granted, Twister has some flaws, but it is definitely plausable that you can see a tornado, with clear skies behind you. this would generally take place right as the convection begins to start (3-6pm timeframe in the central plains). its also plausable (as i've seen in chasing tornadoes myself) that you can see clear skies or at least clearING skies in the vicinity of the rear-flank downdraft

this type of tornadic activity is more common in the "tornado alley"; however tornadoes happen all over the united states (nachoes remembers the one that hit atlanta at night).

gotta run to class - will post some pics later, which will show you some of the things i'm talking about.

c0r version: you can have tornadoes at any time of the day; and you can most definitely have daylight/clear skies all around just one singular cell/storm/funnel cloud

Interesting - you mention that supercells typically form between 3-6 pm in the central plains - is there any particular reason for that?

That strikes me as about right, since I lived on the Eastern edge of the plains and most of our activity came between 7-10 pm.

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Hahaha. Twister is one of the shittest movies ever made.

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quote:

Originally posted by Lebezniatnikov Interesting - you mention that supercells typically form between 3-6 pm in the central plains - is there any particular reason for that? That strikes me as about right, since I lived on the Eastern edge of the plains and most of our activity came between 7-10 pm.

on a typical tornado outbreak day you have the following:

1) a really strong inversion/cap(i.e. there is a layer in the atmosphere where upward vertical motion is no longer possible)

2) surface based boundary (i.e. dry-line , cold front, etc...)

3) clear skies all morning/early afternoon long

4) hot air mass east of the boundary (moist as well...dewpoints above 60F).

when you have the clear skies, you're getting heat all day long from the sun....all this heat builds and builds and eventually will cause the inversion/cap to break. if the heat does not do this alone, then the surface boundary will.

and when is the hottest part of the day? around 3-6pm during the spring/summer months. once the inversion/cap is busted, the heat rises rapidly upward transferring from convective potential energy to kinetic energy.

thus begins the thunderstorm.

if you have cloud cover in the morning/afternoon, you will not get as much heat, and thus your cap/inversion will not break (even w/ surface boundary, sometimes), and no svr wx will occur.

THE MORE YOU KNOW

quote:

Originally posted by BTG Tornadoes are made out of wind.

and occasional cows and trucks

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