i am just wondering?

Question

I live in central georgia and last night the news station was calling tornado warning after warning for mostly all counties in Georgia the weather man stated that the same storm cell that produce the tornadoes in missiouri, alabama,mississippi ,also georgia and i was wondering how does the same cloud produce multiple tornadoes it was like a tornado was on the ground and another was forming why is that?

Answer 1

it's not just one cloud--it's a system. the clouds go through a life cycle, and new clouds form, develop, and die. what happened in georgia was a convective line, and several tornadoes were produced from the entire line.

Answer 2

Another good question. What you are basically asking and which has not been answered is the meteorological conditions under which these storms may form. As an Air Force meteorologist for many years I use to watch the forecasters who specialized in this kind of forecasting in Omaha, Nebraska as they worked. What they looked for was a region where warm, moist, unstable surface air coming from the south with drier, stronger, westerly air overlaying it may exist. The other thing they looked for would be the possibility of thunderstorm development or movement into that same region. Where these two met and the wind shear from near the surface to cloud level was such that the thunderstorms would experience a cyclonic circulation there that would help to trigger the tornado vortex.

Now these storms in Alabama and Georgia had all those ingredients. The cold, dry air aloft was produced by a very strong jet stream while the lower level warm, moist, unstable air was streaming up from the gulf. Whenever this shearing system ran into or I should say over, a thunderstorm the horizontal ring of circulation would be drawn up and into the storm cell generating a new tornado vortex. This is not an uncommon occurance. Whenever you see the ingredients I have listed above, look out! Tornadoes are possible.


I am a retired meteorologist with some 45 years of experience.

Answer 3

Another good question. What you are basically asking and which has not been answered is the meteorological conditions under which these storms may form. As an Air Force meteorologist for many years I use to watch the forecasters who specialized in this kind of forecasting in Omaha, Nebraska as they worked. What they looked for was a region where warm, moist, unstable surface air coming from the south with drier, stronger, westerly air overlaying it may exist. The other thing they looked for would be the possibility of thunderstorm development or movement into that same region. Where these two met and the wind shear from near the surface to cloud level was such that the thunderstorms would experience a cyclonic circulation there that would help to trigger the tornado vortex.

Now these storms in Alabama and Georgia had all those ingredients. The cold, dry air aloft was produced by a very strong jet stream while the lower level warm, moist, unstable air was streaming up from the gulf. Whenever this shearing system ran into or I should say over, a thunderstorm the horizontal ring of circulation would be drawn up and into the storm cell generating a new tornado vortex. This is not an uncommon occurance. Whenever you see the ingredients I have listed above, look out! Tornadoes are possible.

Answer 4

well the more warm moisture and cold air comes together, it sort of swirls like the cold and warm are chasing eachother and then it starts decending from the sky speeding up s it nears toward the ground an BAM!
and the reason another tornado is forming is tornadoes dont all come down at once to wreak havoc. they are separate cells that take different times to come down.

Answer 5

thay are big and its the storme not the cloud its self weach it on the weatherchanel.com