Stormgodess wrote:Yeh the Tornadoes with Francine has been one of my biggest concerns because she has been expansive. With a lot of area for them to spin up.
With the big blob of convection in front of her sort of looking like it has "broken off" from the main rotation. Does that make the threat of Tornadoes less likely in that group of storms? Or does it not make no difference at all?
Sorry for the total newbie question
One of the main factors to spin up tornadoes is directional shear, that is, a change in wind direction at different heights in the atmosphere.
As Francine approaches landfall, low-level winds will be going east to west.
The trof will have winds going west to east higher up in the atmosphere.
This creates a large amount of spin in the atmosphere. In fact, it's about the worst-case scenario.
Most tropical systems create EF1 tornadoes when they are close to landfall or make landfall since they don't have the upper level wind flow to spin up stronger ones.
Looks like it may not be the case here. Could see some larger twisters this time around.
Sorry to have to be so blunt.