STORM2K

Hi,

I know this is not related to the tropics but the NWS issued a winter weather statement for alabama-Florida but it is really a tornado watch.

Check out the link.

http://www.wunderground.com/severe.asp

or this link...

http://www.wunderground.com/US/FL/009.html

scroll down till you see the winter weather statement LOL!!! :lol

I'm in Birmingham and I can tell you that it is waaaay too cold for tornados here. I just checked out the temps for Mobile and I'd think that even at 60F and falling that it would be too cold for tornados even there. But then again, what do I know?

Rieyeuxs wrote:I'm in Birmingham and I can tell you that it is waaaay too cold for tornados here. I just checked out the temps for Mobile and I'd think that even at 60F and falling that it would be too cold for tornados even there. But then again, what do I know?

I've dealt with tornadoes in Missouri during January--with snow on the ground. Imagine the sight.

Most tornadoes in CA occur in the Winter and I've seen a photo of a cold air funnel touchdown near Tucson during a thundersnow event. It all depends upon what type of tornado you are talking about since most of them are not the mesocyclone tornadoes that chasers go after but usually smaller events like landspouts and cold air funnels.

Steve

Landspouts are still tornadoes. (We don't use the term landspout over here at all) The most active time overe here for them is the Autumn and I believe they get LT supercells over there like we can do here so it sounds a similar tornado climate.

Rieyeuxs wrote:I'm in Birmingham and I can tell you that it is waaaay too cold for tornados here. I just checked out the temps for Mobile and I'd think that even at 60F and falling that it would be too cold for tornados even there. But then again, what do I know?

You can have severe weather at 60 with a DP near 60... your not going to get an F5, but you can still get tornadoes, damaging wind, and large hail.

But why would the warnings be out for winter when there is a tornado watch box out.

Click on the links and you will see what I mean. The countys shaded in white usually means a winter warning not a tornado warning that would be shaded in red thats why I thought it was funny to see winter warnings in a tornado watch thats all, an error.

http://www.wunderground.com/severe.asp

and this link:

http://www.wunderground.com/US/FL/028.html

The UK and the West Coast of the US are very similar indeed in their tornado experience since the causative pattern is very similar-a strong Vorticity max imbedded in an unstable mPk airmass. My first ever tornado experience was with this kind of tornado in 1951 while walking to school in the SFO Bay Area. The storm ultimately became a F2 and was one of 6 in the area that January morning. The tornado that killed 6 in Vancouver WA seemed to be a mini supercell type of event however. In AZ, we get the cold air variety, landspouts (one occurred near Tucson last July) and mini supercells which are storms that have supercells characteristics but are smaller in size than the Great Plains monsters-on very rare occasions AZ chasers will capture a full sized supercell on video as I have.

Steve

This past March we has a thundersnow event here in Virginia and along with the thunder came some significant wind gusts. There were also a severe thunderstorms just inside the warm sector of the low pressure are causing the event; I was only 30 miles or so from the warm sector and the low was starting to occlude which made elevated thunderstorms possible. There could have easily been a weak tornado (or snownado) or two spawned out of this although I do not recall if any actually occured.

In January 1992 we had 72 mph wind gusts during a thundersnow event.

Steve

That is over simplifying it a bit but then there are local factors round here that also help as well as that. I've seen video footage of a LT supercell here but not a classic supercell. We must get them though as the term supercell was given by one of the professors at uni for a storm over Wokingham. The major problem here is an inablity to follow storms due to the road network and the fact the tornadoes are often rainwrapped.

Thundersnow is cool, think there was at least one tornado reported last time we had this sort of event.