Virtual twister reveals possible source of tornado longevity
Storm simulation suggests rain keeps tornadoes spinning
A rotating updraft within this 20-kilometer-high thunderstorm sired a violent tornado. The twister, which looks quite small compared with the rest of the towering storm, packed winds at over 320 kilometers per hour and left behind a long trail of devastation. Or it would have, had the storm been real.
This realistic visualization of a supercell thunderstorm was honored at the Extreme Science and Engineering Discovery Environment conference in St. Louis in July. The underlying computer simulation, which calculates how pressure, moisture and heat conspire to create megastorms, is the first to successfully reproduce a long-lived EF5 tornado, the most severe designation of twister. The simulation could help explain why some tornadoes linger for hours after forming, says cocreator Leigh Orf, an atmospheric scientist at the University of Wisconsin–Madison.