EESA09H3 Lecture Notes - Lecture 5: Tornado Climatology, Natural Disaster, Canadian Prairies
5 Mar 2018
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Document Summary
1 km or less. moderate wind shear lasts longer than ordinary upper level winds from the north; can form tornadoes, microbursts strong wind shear storm can last for several hours. Mesoscale convective complexes multiple thunderstorms when one is about to die the other one starts. circulation fashion. Gust front forces more air into the updraft: dissipating: downdraft cuts off updraft and storm loses energy source and dissipates. Microbursts: localized downdrafts; radial burst of surface wind. Squall line: string of thunderstorms along a cold front. What is a tornado: rotating column of air that reaches the ground, mostly spin clockwise, 100-600kms diameter, last a few minutes, peak speed: 400km/h. Thunderstorms and tornadoes are related since tornadoes are formed from the supercell thunderstorm. Famous tornadoes in canada: edmonton tornado, 31st july 1987, f4, damage of 350 million , 27 fatalities. , 1985: barrie tornado, may 31st, north of toronto, f4, 13 tornadoes in southern ontario, damage of more than 100 million $
