Even on the periphery of a tornado, or in one of its weaker phases, flying debris remains a major danger. A night tornado on 26 April 1991 launched a chunk of unknown debris ("missile" in damage-survey parlance) through the brick veneer of the Oologah (OK) High School gym. Gymnasiums are inherently unsafe in a tornado anyway because of weak support for large-span roofs; but this illustrates an … [Read more...]
Yellowstone Morning Fogs
On a cold Yellowstone dawn, two fog sources blended to form an enchantingly eerie and ethereal scene: ground fog from the previous day's heavy rains and condensed steam risen out of geothermal vents. For about an hour, an area of several square miles around the park's western geyser basins resembled a giant version of the stages and fun houses that use dry ice to create chaotically dancing and … [Read more...]
It’s BeHIND You!
Driving southward past the west side of a supercell, out in the rain-free area just behind the storm, we were hearing tornado reports but couldn't see it buried in the storm's murky precipitation shield to our left. While crossing a creek valley, this—the dying tail end of the tornado being reported—emerged back to our northeast, off port stern. The snakelike funnel had quickly popped out of the … [Read more...]
Last-Gasp Circulation
A tail cloud, clear slot and ragged area of rotation marked the final wall cloud of the last in series of supercells we would intercept on this day. The old, deeply occluded mesocyclone responsible for this wall cloud seemed to be running on fumes, with cool air in its inflow region. Among other events of years past, we learned from a photogenic tornado a couple of hours before not to dismiss … [Read more...]
Steam in the Fog
It seems post-apocalyptic: this heat-blasted landscape of conifer skeletons, rising steam, bare and mineralized ground, in a sunrise light that reminds of artists' conceptions depicting primordial planets. Yet the scene is readily available in some form, on most cool mornings in the Lower Geyser Basin. Locally heavy rains the day before had left the ground saturated also, contributing to an … [Read more...]
A Peculiar Experience
Almost immediately behind a powerful complex of thunderstorms, enough instability remained above the cool, moist, somewhat hazy outflow air near the surface to generate still more deep convection. One can tell that this towering cumulus clump is somewhat starved for buoyancy by its soft, translucent appearance, and the hole almost directly centered on the cloud mass. We were too bedazzled by the … [Read more...]
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