Do tornados ...

[Aslkahuna]

Yes, the debate has been going on for a long time but I think most of it was silenced after a paper was published in the BAMS in October 1997 which detailed the similarities of the North American Monsoon to the Asian Monsoon and why it was a true monsoon. It certainly convinced me as up to then I was not convinced that we had a monsoon here . Since then I've watched it closely and note some similarities to the monsoons I experienced in the Philippines. The study ran in 2004 and is in the data analysis phase. What is called the Southwestern US monsoon is actually the northern limit of the Full North American Monsoon so tends to be more erratic. As far as JB is concerned, we don't pay much attention to him down here since he's there and we are here and unless you are physically in the SW US you can't possibly get a handle on the weather down here because the local effects will kill you all of the time.

Steve

[P.K.]

However, landspouts, despite the different term to describe them, are still tornadoes as are cold air funnels that make contact with the ground. Waterspouts that come ashore are called tornadoes by NWS regardless of method of formation and tornadoes over water are called waterspouts regardless of method of formation. Mesocyclone tornadoes actually comprise much less than half of all reported tornadoes though they tend to be the most severe. Remember that the definition of a tornado does not say anything about method of formation just that it is a violently rotating column of air in connecting the cloud and ground.

Exactly, it is a tornado no matter how it forms and is dangerous no matter how it forms as well.

[tornadochaser1986]

almost as bad as tornadic producing storm training over one area or the tornado reversing and going back the way it came

[Brett Adair]

Want to talk about getting ravaged by a tornado...or two...you must remember the Carbon Hill, AL episode of 11/10/02 where an F-3 went through downtown Carbon Hill in a lead supercell just as another was developing 15 miles southwest of it. 30 minutes later another F-3 moved just south (i.e. 1-2 miles) of the original damage path. The first tornado was 72.6 miles in path length. The second was 44.3.

http://www.srh.noaa.gov/bmx/significant ... /index.php