Ive seen this article going around and wanted to comment. Yes, horizontal vortices are possible, but theyre pretty rare.This, however, was not a tornado. One of the most important things we look at in meteorology overall, not just tornadoes, is vorticity and vorticity advection. Vorticity is nothing more than the amount of spin in a fluid. In mathematical terms, vorticity is the curl of the three dimensional wind field. In atmospheric dynamics, you mainly focus on vertical vorticity. In mesoscale meteorology, you begin to talk about horizontal vorticity. Horizontal vorticity can be generated and then tilted into the horizontal. Theoretically, a tornado can be generated this way, but I think Ive only seen one such case.
Posted on: Thu, 07 Aug 2014 18:33:41 +0000
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