JtheJackal
Emperor
- Joined
- Jul 25, 2002
- Messages
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Remember the tornado in Salt Lake City? There was video of the tornado going over a construction site and you could see part of this huge crane collapse.
Tornado hits metropolis
- Thread starter stormbind
- Start date
CoolioVonHoolio
Quit WoW, back to Civ.
wow, i didnt know that tornados hit cities! (not sarcastic) and another thing i didnt know there were tornados in europe...
CannoedGerbil
Chieftain
i didn't know you could tornados in Britain either. It didn't seem to do to much damage though.
This may not have been fully understood but apparently, the required weather components are fairly common in the UK with about 30 swirly-things forming each year over Coventry, but they rarely develop into tornadoes.
Could the complete formation of these mini-storms be the result of climate change? Should we expect more tornadoes in that metropolis of huddled cities in coming years?
Could the complete formation of these mini-storms be the result of climate change? Should we expect more tornadoes in that metropolis of huddled cities in coming years?
It also lays claim to being the greenest city in the world, on account of it having more planted trees - but this is hard to appreciate from the ground.farting bob said:
Technically, Birmingham has more miles of canal than Venice - not actually more canals, but then I suppose where one canal ends and the next starts is purely a matter of opinion. The city centre has a section of canal with a tour boat surrounded by some restaurants and the erm... white building (called the world something or other - convention centre?). The remainder of canals rarely have any traffic.
I used to live in Birmingham, and could show you one or two romantic spots
Best view of Birmingham: Stand on the roof of a building on a hill around the outskirts in mid-summer. The leaved trees throughout the city combine to make it look like a vast natural forest (they obscure rooftops), except the central banking district which will look like a collection of white towers. Draw that - it looks really neat! Sadly I never took a photo of it
Drewcifer
Agent of Karma
According to the BBC the UK averages a little over 30 tornadoes a year.
By comparison Minnesota, which is considered to be on the northern edge of "tornado alley" on the plains has averaged about 35 a year since the ability to track tornadoes has improved over lightly inhabited areas. Minnesota is 203,375 sq. km., the UK is 224,820 sq. km. I can think of three possible explanations for the discrepency in perception. Either the UK counts funnel clouds (tornadoes that have not hit the ground) as tornadoes (if MN did the same our numbers would be in the hundreds per year), the UK has always been more prone to tornadoes than is commonly perceived, or global warming is accelerating tornadic activity in northern Europe.
Tornadoes usually occur when very warm air is in close proximity to much cooler air, specifically when warm humid air is near the ground and rises due to heating by mid-day sun and then hits much colder and drier air that is aloft, generally along a pronounced warm/cold frontal boundry. When the atmosphere is "juiced" with humidity and heat in 70s and 80s F you can just feel it. This always seems to produce intense thundersorms when cold fronts are comming, some of which turn tornadic. It can happen anywhere these conditions exist, it is just that they are most common in the central US. When it is hotter than that the atmosphere tends to be "capped" and tornadoes are unlikely i.e. the upper atmosphere is almost as hot as the lower one and tornadoes (and other strong thunderstorms) cant form because the temperature variation between ground level and 50,000 feet up isn't enough.
Does the UK have a storm siren system? Here when a potentially tornadic storm is comming they blow the old air raid sirens which are now known as "storm sirens". While there are numerous false alarms, if global warming is causing more tornadoes over the UK it is a system that is highly reccomended. It saves lives.
Good luck to the folks in Birmingham; while strong thunderstorms are cool, tornadoes are bad things, we know what they do here, godspeed to those affected.
By comparison Minnesota, which is considered to be on the northern edge of "tornado alley" on the plains has averaged about 35 a year since the ability to track tornadoes has improved over lightly inhabited areas. Minnesota is 203,375 sq. km., the UK is 224,820 sq. km. I can think of three possible explanations for the discrepency in perception. Either the UK counts funnel clouds (tornadoes that have not hit the ground) as tornadoes (if MN did the same our numbers would be in the hundreds per year), the UK has always been more prone to tornadoes than is commonly perceived, or global warming is accelerating tornadic activity in northern Europe.
Tornadoes usually occur when very warm air is in close proximity to much cooler air, specifically when warm humid air is near the ground and rises due to heating by mid-day sun and then hits much colder and drier air that is aloft, generally along a pronounced warm/cold frontal boundry. When the atmosphere is "juiced" with humidity and heat in 70s and 80s F you can just feel it. This always seems to produce intense thundersorms when cold fronts are comming, some of which turn tornadic. It can happen anywhere these conditions exist, it is just that they are most common in the central US. When it is hotter than that the atmosphere tends to be "capped" and tornadoes are unlikely i.e. the upper atmosphere is almost as hot as the lower one and tornadoes (and other strong thunderstorms) cant form because the temperature variation between ground level and 50,000 feet up isn't enough.
Does the UK have a storm siren system? Here when a potentially tornadic storm is comming they blow the old air raid sirens which are now known as "storm sirens". While there are numerous false alarms, if global warming is causing more tornadoes over the UK it is a system that is highly reccomended. It saves lives.
Good luck to the folks in Birmingham; while strong thunderstorms are cool, tornadoes are bad things, we know what they do here, godspeed to those affected.
EdwardTking
Deity
Drewcifer said:
No, I don't think that the UK counts funnel clouds. I think its count includes whirlwinds that the USA would not regard as being intense enough to be categorised as a tornado.
Yes, severe energy weather events seem to be increasing.
No, but some areas have flood warning siren systems.
Drewcifer
Agent of Karma
Interesting, in the US tornadoes are charecterised by the style of damage rather than by the magnitude. An F-0 tornado is known as a tornado by the nature of the destruction rather than the extent. It would be weak but would leave it's halmark in a grove of trees with limbs blown down in different directions in the storm. This is the definition of a tornado here; not windspeed but rather damage pattern. At the same time a microburst may have stronger winds but blows down all the trees in the same direction. Microbursts may have wind speads of up to 120 miles per hour but are not tornadoes by local definition though there are strong winds. They can also destroy your house but tend to be very specific in location. Microbursts can be much more dangerous than a weak tornado and are generally a greater danger here in MN. I have seen straight line winds ruin neighborhoods with no tornado in sight. Perhaps microbursts are counted as whirlwinds and therefore tornadoes in the UK. The wind does swirl with the lie of the land but generally in a consistent direction. I swear I am not trying to be pendantic, I am only trying to understand why the numbers look so similar with different perceptions. I am sure there is a logical reason. Probably the difference is one of definition.EdwardTking said:
There is a picture of the Coventry "tornado" on page 1. There are also pictures of the sky turning black in Birmingham but no other sign.
Objective description: So what you have there is strong winds, in a tunnel formation that reached the ground, turning the sky black, dumping a lot of water (there was minor flooding), lifting roofs and trees off the ground. It lasted only minutes.
Conclusion:
We do seem to class things differently in the UK, but then names are invented for convenience and perhaps British weather is not consistent enough to warrant a long list of classifications.
For comparisson: The Gales (with wind gusts around 200mph - 1980s) and historic "Great Storm" come to mind. Do these have any meaning in American vocabulary?
Objective description: So what you have there is strong winds, in a tunnel formation that reached the ground, turning the sky black, dumping a lot of water (there was minor flooding), lifting roofs and trees off the ground. It lasted only minutes.
Conclusion:
We do seem to class things differently in the UK, but then names are invented for convenience and perhaps British weather is not consistent enough to warrant a long list of classifications.
For comparisson: The Gales (with wind gusts around 200mph - 1980s) and historic "Great Storm" come to mind. Do these have any meaning in American vocabulary?
h4ppy
You sir, pineapple?
A gale is a strong storm out at sea in common language and I know of the great storm(s), but only becuase I was fooling around at a historic site one day. (our coastline doesn't change as much as yours did so we tend to pay less attention to historic storms)
Winner
Diverse in Unity
blindside said:
American import
We had one tornado in CZ last year, it hit one Czech town and devastated it. So we see the effects of global warming very personally
The UK has witnessed entire cities vanish into the ocean (over a period of time). That is quite shocking. Examples can be found in the Doomsday books which is essentially an ancient census. It gives positions and sizes of thriving cities that are, today, literally ocean.h4ppy said:
We are shrinking!
Winner
Diverse in Unity
Every summer filled with natural disasters from global warming, I am more and more happy with living in Central Europe, in pretty mountainous piece of land.
classical_hero
In whom I trust
Quit complaining. We do not here about Global warming when there are years that are normal, when things go as we want them to happen. Disasters have always happened. This is nothing new, and yet it people start blaming Global warming for problems that will eventually happen, given enough time.
CH, you are not seeing clearly.
The complaints are not about disasters. The complaints are about the frequency of disasters. Two centuries ago, humans witnessed disasters every other decade, but we witness several examples every year.
The complaints are not about disasters. The complaints are about the frequency of disasters. Two centuries ago, humans witnessed disasters every other decade, but we witness several examples every year.
classical_hero
In whom I trust
Because there are more people on the Planet. That means that we are in areas that people did not live in before, so that can also exlain why there seems to be more natural disasters now.stormbind said:
classical_hero
In whom I trust
Perhaps you should read the Bible, because that is exactly what it says about the end times.stormbind said:
