Rare "sideways" tornado captured on video

[ArtRosen]

Any meteorologists want to chime in on what the hell that thing is?

Notice around 1:20....

http://news.yahoo.com/s/livescience/20110428/sc_livescience/raresidewaystornadocapturedonvideo

A rare sideways tornado was captured on video as it spun off of a massive twister that roared through downtown Tuscaloosa, Ala., yesterday (April 27).

Just how rare are these sideways spinners?

"There's not even a settled-upon name for those," said Bob Henson, a meteorologist with the National Corporation for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo.

In the video, horizontal, rope-like funnel clouds periodically twist off of the main funnel cloud. At 1:20 in the video, a large sideways funnel cloud forms in front of the twister.

Sideways funnel clouds are usually seen only with the biggest and baddest of tornadoes, and yesterday was no exception, Henson told OurAmazingPlanet. The huge tornado may have carved a path from downtown Tuscaloosa to downtown Birmingham, about 60 miles (97 kilometers) apart. The tornado appears to be a mile wide and seemed to be on the ground for more than two hours.

The exact death toll from this monster is unknown, but statewide, tornadoes killed an estimated 162 people, CNN reported.

These huge tornadoes are spinning so fast that some of that spin is shed, spawning sidekicks. That's about as much as scientists know about these sideways funnel clouds. They're too small to be replicated or studied in the lab. And despite forming from long-lasting tornadoes, sideways funnel clouds are fleeting, lasting maybe 20 seconds before dissolving, as the video shows.

These sideway tornadoes shouldn't be confused with multivortex tornadoes, Henson said.

A multiple vortex tornado is one that packs several vortices inside the main vortex. These extra funnels usually come in groups of two to five and last only a few minutes. Multiple funnel clouds are usually visible only early in a storm before they break off into tornadoes of their own.

A storm's circulations can only live up to a certain size and intensity, then it splits into two, three or four tornadoes, meteorologist Mike Smith, chief executive officer of Weather Data Services, a part of AccuWeather, told OurAmazingPlanet.

A multivortex tornado is hard to confirm without video. A signature of a multivortex tornado is intense damage where these funnel clouds touch down, and lesser damage where only the winds of the parent tornado swept through, according to the Storm Prediction Center in Norman, Okla. This often creates a hit-or-miss pattern of destruction in the tornado's path. [The Tornado Damage Scale in Images]

Sideways funnel clouds are even harder to spot without video because they don't touch the ground.

[Calderon]

the 1:20 is a classic horizontal vortex, several are seen with this tornado. The Murfreesboro EF4 in 09 had one, the Moore F5 had one as well(two I know right away).

Now, as it is passing the mall, that is one helluva horizontal vortex, if that's what you can even call that thing.

[Sickman]

I've seen quite a few videos with horizontal tubes. The Red Rock, OK tornado (same day as the Andover tornado) had a massive one.

They're fairly easy to explain... strong/violent tornadoes create regions of very high localized shear, which get drawn into the inflow.

[HoarfrostHubb]

I've seen quite a few videos with horizontal tubes. The Red Rock, OK tornado (same day as the Andover tornado) had a massive one.

They're fairly easy to explain... strong/violent tornadoes create regions of very high localized shear, which get drawn into the inflow.

Thanks for giving an explanation. I asked for one in another thread.

Did several of yesterdays tornadoes have these? They seemed to be in several videos of different storms.

Unreal

[AtticaFanatica]

My guess is it's either a type of vortex shedding or a manifestation of really high low level shear that creates intense horizontal vorticity and is displaced from strong vertical velocities so as to prevent tilting over short time scales.

[Dino]

4:20 to 4:35 you can really see a huge horizontal spinning on the right side of the tornado-- for about a split second its got the spiraled arms too. Almost looks like a spinning ball from our perspective.

[Amped]

Thats a tentical, each of them have enough poisen to kill 20 men.

[Dark Energy]

My guess is it's either a type of vortex shedding or a manifestation of really high low level shear that creates intense horizontal vorticity and is displaced from strong vertical velocities so as to prevent tilting over short time scales.

yea, the first thing I thot of was the epic vorticity with that thing. A really good video. At least the person filming wasn't screaming like an idiot like some of them do. It was about as calm a video as you can get for such a terrible scenario.

[ELY_M]

I call them horizontal vortices or tentacles.  I have been seeing more them on recent tornadoes and tornadoes in few last years.  The Salina tornado on April 14th 2012 have them too.  I saw one on Mobile, AL tornado on x-mas day.   As more chasers/spotters and better cameras are out now, horizontal vortices are more easily seen on tornadoes.  horizontal vortices can happen on weak tornadoes too.  I seen them on F0 tornado in Minnesota. 

you can see it at the start of video.