16 May 2009

Tornado


United States—Backlit by sunlight, a brown tornado towers perhaps 4,000 feet above the parched plains of Kansas... Photo credit: Jim Reed; found at National Geographic.
This photo fascinates me because the vortex of the tornado appears to descend from (ascend from?) a patch of clear sky rather than from beneath a wall cloud.

5 comments:

  1. AnonymousMay 16, 2009 at 7:53 PM

    i believe it's a dust devil rather than a tornado

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  2. MikeMay 16, 2009 at 11:18 PM

    I've seen plenty of dust devils, living in the Midwest, but I've never seen one over 15-20 feet high. Of course, I've never seen a tornado like that picture either...

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  3. AnonymousMay 17, 2009 at 8:09 AM

    Dust devil. We had one take the roof off our house in Sedona, damndest thing I'd ever seen. And it came up out of nowhere on a relatively calm sunny day.

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  4. OkiedokeyMay 17, 2009 at 8:34 AM

    Remember tornados can curve - when they can come down from the cloud the funnel can be twisted and go waay to the side before touching the ground.

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  5. AnonymousMay 18, 2009 at 10:42 AM

    Also note that the ground appears to be totally dry. I suspect a rotating cloud would follow a storm, not be on its vanguard.

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