Unlocking the mysteries of the most violent tornadoes and the storms that produce them

This talk was presented on June 13, 2016 at the fourth annual Blue Waters Symposium in Sunriver, OR.

[@grayden4138]

That moment when you realize that a tornado isn't just the funnel cloud between the bottom of the storm cell and the ground. It's just the focal point of the entire cell's cyclonic power. The rest of the tornado is the entire supercell structure reaching up into the sky, sometimes several miles. Christ, that is terrifying to think about.

[@rdallas81]

Christ? What's wrong with you man? God is everything. By and through Jesus ALONE may we "know Him" The holy ghost will come and guide you on to all truth. THANK YOU JESUS Christ for being ALIVE! You can truly be free by being a slave to Christ! I get it! Shalom! Praise God! Jesus IS GOD incarnate!😊😊😊

[@rdallas81]

John 4:1-6) "Beloved, do NOT believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see if they be from God, for many false prophets have gone out into the world. By this you know the spirit of God: Every spirit that confesses Jesus Christ came in the flesh is from God, and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of antichrist, which you heard was coming and is in the world already. Little children, you are from God and have overcome them, for He who is in you is greater than he who is in the world. They are from the world, therefore they speak from the world, and the world listens to them. WE are from God. Whoever knows God listens to us; whoever is not from God does not listen to us. By THIS we know the spirit of truth and the spirit of error."

[@declandougan7243]

@@rdallas81Jesus Fucking Christ!!!!!!

[@jaredpatterson1701]

Yes, it's a localized area of low pressure

[@wojecire]

Oh peddle your middle eastern superstition somewhere else.​@@rdallas81

[@ZenithAstrology]

I've been waiting all my life for animated graphics like this ..

[@Cleaning_Hero]

Me to!

[@rdallas81]

Me 3

[@DarkFilmDirector]

12:32 Tim Samaris's pictures formed the basis of this model. Legend. RIP

[@MattMajcan]

I dont really know what much of this means, but it sure looks cool. The main thing I took from this is that tornadoes arent really just one vortex, its a bunch of vortices all getting twisted up together like a braid

[@vimalneha]

Superb description!

[@sv1000rider]

Incredible! After many storms are sampled/modeled, I foresee computer animations like this appearing on local weather forecasts.

[@DarthTwilight]

I keep coming back to this. You have a really REALLY cool gig.

[@gl3618]

Whats interesting is that the cyclonic vortices seem to either destroy or encircle the anticyclonic ones. Are the anticyclonic ones drawn to the center of the overall tornado? Basically cyclonic dancers surrounding a group of tight nit anticyclonic rotations. After it gets stronger, it looks like the cyclonic vortices begin to destroy the others. Very cool stuff. I always wondered if cool air was better for storm development like with engines. Hot air particles are moving faster and as with lighter debris, its harder to control and manipulate. Cold and dense air can be compressed and manipulated or consolidated easier....this is fun to contemplate.

[@LeighOrfsThunderstormResearch]

The interplay of cyclonic and anticyclonic vortices along the forward flank is fascinating. The cyclonic ones just get assimilated (you can see them "disappear" into the tornado vortex) while the anticyclonic vortices get "tossed around as objects". And when they go horizontal, you get stuff that looks like, say, 27 Aprii 2011 / Tuscaloosa. The air is swarming with these vortices, we just don't usually see them unless we really look hard for them.

[@gl3618]

@@LeighOrfsThunderstormResearch thats why I love watching footage of different tornadoes from history. Seeing these in great detail as the simulation shows makes us look even closer at real life scenarios. You see the simulation, look at real life, and go, "hmmm, i never noticed those tiny little swirls on the ground off to the sides...let's see if I can figure out why they are rejected from the center rotation rather than being absorbed..." I have no schooling in meteorology or storm chasing, just an enthusiast who watches these things build on radar and jumps back and forth to different layers. Your research is so interesting. Thank you for giving me something to twist my brain with.

[@bubbamarkland1992]

Please keep these videos coming. I was very excited to see this newest upload and I look forward to seeing more. Thanks

[@jessehyde375]

this is great work and it really helps us understand these storms better. maybe one day we can acquire enough data from a storm to accurately simulate it?

[@Marmocet]

It's interesting how supercells resemble extratropical cyclones. I remember noticing this when I happened to check the national weather radar during the April 2011 Superoutbreak. Almost all the thunderstorms that popped up had distinct warm and cold fronts that gave them a comma, or backwards '7' appearance on radar, and the radar-detected tornadoes were always right where you'd expect the early stages of occlusion to occur.

[@Athenas_Realm_System]

Marmocet well supercells can definitely spawn out of Extratropical Cyclones(MLC, Mid-Latitude Cyclone), as well as lead to formation of MLCs either by perturbing fronts, or by becoming a Tropical Cyclone and making a post-tropical transition. But Cyclonegenesis in MLCs looks very similar to genesis of supercells just in the latter it is often much smaller, but both you often have three air masses: Warm Dry, Cold, & Warm Humid.

[@Marmocet]

Incidentally, you can create a pretty spectacular fire whorl by arranging pans of flammable liquid in the same 7 pattern and setting them alight. A while back, I was tinkering with wood gasifier designs to try to achieve as particulate-free a burn as possible, and I found I could achieve a much hotter flame by restricting air inflow in such a way that the flames coalesced into a tight, rapidly rotating vortex. Watching these videos makes me wonder if there isn't something similar going on where cool and/or dry air currents are restricting the warm moist air inflow in a way that shapes and intensifies the tornadic vortex. On my burner, which relies entirely on convection to drive airflow, adjusting the widths of the air intake slats would cause a dramatic step change in the vorticity of the flame. At a certain width, there's at most a weak rotation to the flame, but when the slat reaches a threshold width, there's a sudden dramatic increase in the vorticity (and flame temperature).

[@jaredpatterson1701]

@@Marmocet well isn't it the same principle for why ballerinas spin faster when they pull their arms closer to their body? I'm no meteorologist but after all my research it seems the tornado is indeed a mini version of low pressure equipped with fronts, and sometimes maybe even the "eye" if the winds allow it. But because relative to the size of an actual low, they're tiny, the balance needed to sustain them is way more difficult to maintain

[@martinavaslovik3433]

Wow! Really great work! Thank you for this!

[@someprick7705]

God bless you Leigh. When were able to warn right down to the block and house as far away as a day or three or even a week, may your name be immortalized in tornado history for all the lives you’re going to save. God fucking bless you.

[@anthonybernstein1626]

This is fascinating, thank you for sharing!

[@PistolP33]

The rear flank takes into account the conservation of angular momentum once its demarcated by the updraft. Each mini vortices are conflated after the updraft attenuates it. With that amount of energy to shed, it convolves into a prime vortex; rotation become nascent and the birth of a tornado has commenced. The forward flank sparks the deal; the updraft sheds the angular momentum; the rear flank is subsequently coalesced.

[@Brian.Gardner]

Amazing work.

[@apismellifera1000]

Well done!! I love the twin helical vortex the best.

[@christopherkane2842]

Brilliant work thank you keep up the amazing work 🌪️

[@EthanBWeather]

A really fascinating video with a brilliant view of vorticity around a supercell (of this magnitude anyway), the perfect video to watch while I'm sick

[@mjl1966y]

Well, you know, that kind of makes sense. And it's simpler than the conventional theory of occlusion between FFD and RFD creating a venturrii-like inflow notch. Well, here, the downdraft feeds the updraft feeds the downdraft and if that cycle is strong enough, you get a tornado. Heck, the tail visually feeding the tornado intuitively lines up very nicely - you can see this theory in action in every supercell tornado. Occam's razor? This really just "clicks" I would also say this: When it comes to trying to "see" if there is going to be a tornado, everybody looks at rotation. "Hey, look at that couplet." Well, that's the symptom not the cause. Maybe we need to be looking at the updraft velocities in the meso? We know we have rotation--- what we really need to look at (maybe) is the trigger that accelerates it to the point of genesis. Well, updraft surge exceeding some velocity threshold (or maybe even an acceleration profile) that kicks the angular momentum into gear might be the ticket. Or some ratio of that to something else we haven't figured out yet. Everybody mentions updraft in the meso. Have we bothered to measure it? I envision a chain: rotation established --> updraft surge --> rotation threshold to bring in SVD --> loop established.

[@jennodine]

I’ve been saying that everyone is distracted by the twister and they’re missing the rest of the show.

[@allisonangier1631]

I learned from this, many thanks.

[@danjf1]

Good info, thanks

[@ericplevy586]

I noticed in the questions that friction was brought up. From what I understand you set the boundary condition along the ground as a free-slip boundary and you mentioned that you essentially don’t have “inflation” layers to resolve the boundary layer near the ground due to computational cost. Does that mean that your grid spacing is constant everywhere? So when you refer to a 20 m grid, do you mean 20 m minimum mesh edge length or do you mean the distance between EVERY point in your grid is 20 m, uniformly? Would the element count even be too large if you were to generate a zonal mesh where you resolve the vertical mesh below the approximate height of the tornado using a coarse inflation layer such that your first layer cell height puts you within the y+~200 region so you can just rely on a boundary layer blending model to bridge the gap between the no slip condition and a reasonably low y+ value that puts you in the logarithmic wall law range? Or is the scale of the simulation too big for that to be applicable? Or is there a possibility of developing your own boundary layer blending function without having to change your mesh size? Or is what I’m asking completely irrelevant and does the low-horizontal shear level shear not really matter in tornadogenesis and vortex structure not even matter? OR do you have to have a uniform grid for the simulation to work? This is some of the coolest research on the planet!

[@LeighOrfsThunderstormResearch]

A long time ago, back in the 1990s when I started my PhD work, my advisor stated that he really liked regular (isotropic/evenly spaced) meshes, and that kind of stuck with me. In the vicinity of the tornado I use regular grid spacing always, no vertical stretch. This has been my approach for quite a while now. However, as you note, the boundary layer is not sufficiently resolved. I am OK with this for the work I am doing right now, which is looking more at what supports the tornado rather than getting all of the details of the tornado 'perfect'. If we were to include a very fine vertical mesh near the ground it would require the model time step to be reduced dramatically and the simulation would cost a lot on a supercomputer and there would still be no guarantee that the simulation would be useful. I am currently doing some exploratory work coupling wind engineering models to the cloud model I am using to address this. Finally, just a point: Only decreasing the vertical grid spacing does not "increase the resolution". It only increases it in one dimension. I just can't abide highly anisotropic meshes anymore, there are known problems with them and I just prefer to slowly step up the isotropic grid spacing as the computers get better. Eventually we'll have to deal head on with the surface boundary condition and I have ideas for that. Other teams still use that vertical stretch but I've never gotten good tornadoes with them.

[@ericplevy586]

@@LeighOrfsThunderstormResearch Thanks for the response and explanation! I used to be really into tornadoes and wound up in a field dealing with MUCH smaller scale fluid dynamics so it’s super interesting to see these atmospheric CFD simulations and the length scales you’re dealing with are unlike any other CFD research out there. You’re doing some incredible work, and your research/videos have genuinely resparked my interest in tornadoes from way before I even knew what I wanted to do with my life.

[@huck2284]

Do we usually see the anticyclonic area of rotation on base velocity prior to the main Tornado touching down??

[@BladeValant546]

I am noticing something similar to modulational instability in the way the vorticities are moving here. So, could it be a piling effect of the rotating air columns eventually leading to a dominate circulation stealing energy from the smaller circulations causing a positive feedback loop?

[@postsurrealfish]

From my latest piece- "...In fluid mechanics, as used used by meteorology today, atmospheric air pressure is driven by heat, with this process driving the weather. But from a charged perspective they are both just the result of moving charge through the atmosphere and so are by products of the electrical processes going, an effect and not the cause. An electric vacuum cleaner spins by way of an electric motor and it is its high spin rate that creates low air pressure and so making the cleaner suck and likewise, it’s not the Low pressure creating the movement through the atmosphere. But instead, its the spinning charge through the atmosphere that is creating the Low pressure...." & "....Both the earth and cloud bases are negatively charged and so will keep their distance from each other. But when there is enough charge differential between the negative ground and the negative cloud base, the need to balance that negative charge then has to force its way through the atmospheric contact layer with earth and which is keeping them apart. And because it is of the same charge value it has to do so as a circuit and so once again a Birkeland Current is formed, with this exchange being seen as lightning bolts, tornadoes and water spouts and which are all mechanisms for the equalisation of charge, whether that is positive and negative, positive and positive or in these cases, negative and negative...."

[@dalebeers776]

What atmosphic conditions that reside in an area that might feed a storm more than other conditions? Like humidity; temperature of cold vs warm fronts; or how junk can be ingested into the storm and effect storm; stc.?

[@charlesmaeger6162]

Your analysis is right on.

[@charlesmaeger6162]

Leigh, are they using drones now to get close to tornados to gather data? Also, are they using mini rockets to fire into tornadic clouds that release data gathering equipment that can be picked up on the ground later?

[@LeighOrfsThunderstormResearch]

No, drones and copters are used to measure the local atmospheric conditions, providing in situ data that we desperately need to better understand (and validate or nullify) numerical results.

[@builderman912]

what are the effect of change of state on the storm and tornado in deneral, there are obviously some changes of state happening, probably in multiple places.

[@JRedcorn]

Sounds to me like your on to something with temperature influencing the air around the initial cell. Hot air rises and is less dense, cold air sinks and is more dense. The two will not mix until they are the same temperature. With this you have vertical movement, as one system meets another (typically hot and cold if your hunting tornados seeing as they are most common in regions with both) feeding whatever rotation already exists with more hot cold fuel at a horizontal axis and you then have a tornado that until neutral or one sided climate is reached will only continue to grow and gain speed. Perhaps the rain/hail/snow has more effect on lifespan or perhaps even the lifespan of the tornado itself influences temperature to such an extent it creates its own hot cold fuel. For the record im a Missouri native that just finds this stuff fascinating, thought id give 2 cents. Great content keep it up an keep doing things different than everyone else, youl see things they dont.

[@dashawnstallings3169]

I want to see what they look like on hills and mountains with those many vertices

[@CHRIS-pz5sr]

Its really an awesome sight to see a tornado being created watching it form fall out of the skies and making contact with the earth below and the ensuing destruction its terrifying and amazing to witness...

Great work! I am curious what makes vortices visible beside picked up dust? Is it low pressure that causes water vapor to condensate or low temperature or both? Also it would be nice for me to understand how layers of different temperature and humidity mix together to cause main column. These things ar so complex but i got feeling there is some key feature or mechanism that we are missing out to be able to predict conditions of tornado touchdown.

[@jmullentech]

I know this is 7 months old but you got it. It's (more or less) the low pressure that's allowing them to condense.

[@raymondaten2179]

My theory is been is like you said warm air rises and cool air falls. Well if the updraft is very strong the cool air that moves back in to the updraft the cool is being forced to do something it shouldn't do and that is rise. The cool air more or less fights being risen causing the rotation to tighten. Here you have a tornado. It ends when the cool air finally overtakes the warm air causing the updraft to choke out.

[@miztatone918]

The problem with current radar it relies on particles to determine wind speed and direction. No rain droplets no radar picture. I think wind speeds and direction outside of the storm is what we need to improve on understanding. The difference in air current around the storm and its environment. What airflow parameters feed certain storms to lead to larger tornadoes.

[@LeighOrfsThunderstormResearch]

Yep radar sucks in many ways but it's improving, phased array is where it's at. Still gonna have a hard time seeing directly above the ground, though.

[@MrRiw109]

Wow! So cool. The science is getting there!

[@timothyponepal8188]

Has anyone used gauge theory to model storms from a mathematical point of view. Views in terms of manifolds, fibre bundles, geometric in variant theory, calculus of variations, vectorbundles, associated vector bundles. Or is the system integrable or invariant under some kind of symmetry. Is there scale invariance? Then perhaps projective space or conformal geometry can be used. Symmetries could change over time as well. I wonder if the vortices could represent fibres of a manifold with rich structure. Or as anyone tried to embed storms in higher dimensions and look at projections. Ive been curious if anyone has tried. I study pure and applied mathematics and i would like to model them mathematically.

[@tedcrawford6813]

Suggestion: Look aloft. You're analyzing an outboard motor's inner workings by watching the propeller spin.

[@bigthunder2860]

Mabe in the future we will learn how a tornado starts,I have a theory that,before a funnel starts it need a rush of cold air to merge with hot moist air,so Hail can drop during a supercell before the funnel rapidly cooling the moist hot air,causing the air pressure to change rapidly and setting up the perfect conditions!! Also when this air pressure could cause the condensed funnel shape

[@azman67]

The Rain curtain is a friction point...electromagnetic friction point...this cracks nitrogen and reforms into hydrogen and mixes with oxygen and becomes h2o aka rain fall Walter Russell ElectroMagnetic Vortices

[@luiscanamarvega]

So.. al tornadoes are multi-vortex?

[@markischermaximilian]

Luis Cañamar - MediaBros Maybe

[@alexanderk.3056]

Hello, Question: _What is the difference between shelf cloud from a "normal" t-storm and a wall cloud from a supercell T-Storm system?

[@alexanderk.3056]

Oh, nice and thanks!

[@tomatoplot]

I might also add that a wall cloud is a lowering of the updraft base, which is rotating about a vertical axis. Shelf clouds often have weak rotation, usually on a horizontal axis.

[@bradhig]

maybe you could simulate the Tri-State-Tornado someday

[@brendanvoge7651]

Looks like an airplane wingtip vortex in reverse

[@GeneralPurposeVehicl]

One think to be wary of is that the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle applies to the prototypes of the models. Every probe adds another disturbance to the airflow.

[@jaysartori9032]

I wish science could figure out a way to disrupt or stop these supercells from forming into tornadic thunderstorms?

[@dandavis2447]

It was a good idea to call in Bruce Lee to help with this. He knows what’s up.

[@Broody58]

The forward moving stream of air under the cell, may spin into a torid with a spinning center. This pulls surface heat upwards. Rising, it forms an upside down bell shape around the wall cloud. Being cone shaped rising up into the cold low pressure..the cold & low slide down the walls of that cone, spinning down towards center. Any low pressure that falls to center causes an implosion. Enough low pressure mass, implosion speed will increase wind speed. The explosion of the implosion, can be seen as a "tutu" looking debris cloud around the funnel. The bigger the implosion the faster wind will get. When a large mass of low pressure hits the surface, that tutu engulfs the whole funnel & can become a self generating, long term machine. Enough high/heat & low pressure/cold above in its path..& look out! Implosion generates these things strength. Its not simply condensation. i.m.o.

[@WS-ky4wc]

It’s just inertia

[@Geoplanetjane]

You need mads here

[@jdogflipper7997]

u should make an app that simulates this

[@kevcom000]

You should make a mobile device with a 200tb of memory and the processing power of a super computer so it can run that app

[@azman67]

Hi Dr. Orf I would like to invite you out to AZ next tornado season and I can show you how to kill tornadoes.

[@LeighOrfsThunderstormResearch]

With a screen name of Farticus Magilicuty (McGillicuddy?) I have to believe your tornado death machine involves lots of flatulence. Not sure if serious. I think warm farts would likely increase buoyancy, enhance convergence, wrinkle noses and increase EF0 fartnadoes by 0.000045%

[@boreyevich6078]

Sorry, it is non science fiction movie a like to image we see, but any simulation of real physics of super cell or tornado...

[@rdallas81]

Grow one pal

[@JAYDELROSARIQ]

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[@JAYDELROSARIQ]

GERA WARS WEAPONS WEATHER'S MILITARY ARMAS PUNYAL KNYFHIAZ

[@rdallas81]

Not!

[@simonjones2453]

Maybe spend less time on the internet

[@TheNeurotichi]

Vet dark matter finally can be felt, 🙈

[@slusheewolf2143]

Disliking this because it's outdated The NOAA now can track the strong possibility of a tornado hours before a tornado hits... and it's super accurate now

[@tryste_mx]

Disliking or unliking?

[@rdallas81]

Sure.. Which is why over 100 were active just over the last 4 days and they couldn't guess within any accuracy where they would appear.

[@rdallas81]

​@@tryste_mxLicking

[@lowowl5299]

I am going to be flat out honest I have an understanding of the bible and science, my iq is higher than my body weight. Fractals are in everything, lightning bolts and river systems and tree branches and the roots even your own circulatory system is based upon this fractal design. In healthy tree every branch is a smaller copy of it's parent branch , if you are growing weed and the smaller branches are gnarled & do not match the parent branches then your pimp hand is weak and you should protect your lady's and keep the virgin mary jane healthy so you can harvest and cure the hairy genitalia (flowers) and pimp that bitch out. A large multiple vortex tornado is a series of smaller tornadoes rotating around a parent vortex , which is itself in a coiled twisting storm. Now what do tornadoese ALWAYS resemble without exception? Snakes, serpents. They are either ropey and serpent shaped or they are huge and fang shaped, even the downdraft in the middle is similar to venom being injected from the middle of a fang. When the heaven opens and a huge tornado strikes a city, the news shows a constant doppler loop of the supercell. Even from that angle the hook echo resembles the sharp malevolent curvature of a ferocious serpent striking the city. The fractal continues for 5evar, remember this since you are doing glorious research and your enthusiasm and level of intelligence command respect. Respect the pattern and bring the fury into a harmonic appreciation for total devastation :D

[@matthewkleckner4714]

I don't think these are man made events

[@StormsandSaugeye]

Only a fool brags about his IQ.

[@rdallas81]

God is everything. By and through Jesus ALONE may we "know Him" The holy ghost will come and guide you on to all truth. THANK YOU JESUS Christ for being ALIVE! You can truly be free by being a slave to Christ! I get it! Shalom! Praise God! Jesus IS GOD incarnate! Something happened! I am shaking and crying for Joy! Wow! I have ringing in my ears so loud! Guys! It's amazing! I am tingling everywhere and I am glowing and radiating heat! This never happened before! I feel energy and love and a Joy I never had before! Jesus Christ you are my God! Jesus IS God and He is the Holy Ghost! God is 3 in 1 and 1 in 3 and the 1 in the middle died for me! I am REBORN! Baptized by God Himself by His holy ghost entering into me and revealed His love for His creation! Pray! Pray! And repent in sackcloth and ashes that you may be spared upon the day of His wrath! Jesus preached more about HELL than anything else! Now I know all of God's work will come to pass as it IS Written. His will be done "in earth, as it is in heaven". Mathew 6:9-10

[@rdallas81]

Your IQ is lower than your sperm count😊

[@simonjones2453]

I'm going to go out on a limb and suggest that your deep revelation while smoking a ton of weed may not have as much predictive power as a high-resolution numerical model