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Related: About this forumTornado Theory
Here is my new theory of tornado construction/means of destruction:
The tornado 'tube' is full of water falling from the clouds. It is a cloud falling to earth from as high as 40,000 feet.
The falling water from the cloud hits the circular turning rising air and that air concentrates the falling water into what we see: the circular funnel shaped cloud and the tube reaching to the earth.
When you see the on-ground track of the storm where it crosses open land, a mud trail is left from the impact of water hitting with its mass and velocity.
When that concentrated mass of water hits the ground, it hits like a ton of bricks smashing everything it hits.
Just a theory. Feel free to discuss.
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RobertEarl
(13,685 posts)There may be a section as wide as 10 miles at the base of the cloud which is trying to rain. But there is so much air rising that it is being resisted.
That air is moving in a circle and as the water drops it is turned by the winds into the funnel shape. Still the water must fall.
So the circular winds shape that water into the funnel. From the middle of that funnel drops the tornado 'tube'. The winds have shaped the mass of water into a point; the 'tube', and that leading point is able to breakthrough the winds, dropping to earth.
snooper2
(30,151 posts)This literally IS the funniest shit you have every posted on DU...
BRAVO! 
RobertEarl
(13,685 posts)You know nothing about earth science.
Even the experts say: ""The tornado dropped down from the clouds"
Have fun drinking the wine so you two can whine and dine.
The Velveteen Ocelot
(115,681 posts)They are violently rotating columns of air; the only reason they are even visible is because the wind picks up debris. The destruction is caused by the extremely high speeds of the rotating column of wind. The science of what causes tornadoes is well-established. Your theory is incorrect.
Most tornadoes from supercells follow a recognizable life cycle. That begins when increasing rainfall drags with it an area of quickly descending air known as the rear flank downdraft (RFD). This downdraft accelerates as it approaches the ground, and drags the supercell's rotating mesocyclone towards the ground with it.
Formation
As the mesocyclone lowers below the cloud base, it begins to take in cool, moist air from the downdraft region of the storm. This convergence of warm air in the updraft, and this cool air, causes a rotating wall cloud to form. The RFD also focuses the mesocyclone's base, causing it to siphon air from a smaller and smaller area on the ground. As the updraft intensifies, it creates an area of low pressure at the surface. This pulls the focused mesocyclone down, in the form of a visible condensation funnel. As the funnel descends, the RFD also reaches the ground, creating a gust front that can cause severe damage a good distance from the tornado. Usually, the funnel cloud begins causing damage on the ground (becoming a tornado) within a few minutes of the RFD reaching the ground.
RobertEarl
(13,685 posts)In your post there is support for my theory.
Quote: "cool, moist air from the downdraft region of the storm.."
Yep, cool moist water laden air is in the downdraft we see. Now what is heavier? Dry air or moist air? The answer is moist air, as in rainwater saturated air. That rain is falling from on high at a tremendous speed. What does it do when it hits the ground? It smashes what ever it hits.
When you see the tornado forming and dropping from the cloud, what is in that tornado but "cold moist air" directly from the cloud.
Experiment: Hold a funnel 5 feet from the ground. Now pour water down into that funnel of a sufficient amount and the funnel will concentrate that water into a point that can eat away concrete. Of course that is a small scale representation of what happens in the clouds.
Now, as that water hits the ground, it displaces air. If there is already a circulation occurring, it just feeds that circulation.
RobertEarl
(13,685 posts)Your theory states: "As the updraft intensifies, it creates an area of low pressure at the surface. This pulls the focused mesocyclone down,"
What that says is that in the same space two directions of movement are occurring. I find that rather odd to be said. Especially since the water is much heavier than the air.
Here is how I explain what is happening... The downdraft of cool water laden air, already piercing the middle of a warm updraft, causes the air to compact giving the air added movement. It enforces the wind because it displaces it.
Let's try saying this another way:
I doubt that there is much circulation in the downdraft of water bearing cold air. It is just falling because of its weight, same as rain falls. But on the edge of that mass downdraft, the air is already moving and as the downdraft drops, it makes the air move even faster because it is displacing the air.
The Velveteen Ocelot
(115,681 posts)I'm sure they'd be fascinated by it.
Or not.
love_katz
(2,579 posts)but I know I've seen an article where the author stated that some scientists think that when air is moving fast enough, it takes on more of the physics of a liquid.
They weren't saying this because of the air being saturated with water (tornadoes which form in very dry areas do not have visible condensation in their funnels, but they do pack a wallop, just like any tornado).
As near as I can understand from the very many articles I've read about the research into what causes tornadoes, a lot of the power in the thunderstorms which spawn them comes from the heat energy which is released when the water vapor droplets are split up in the violent updrafts within the cloud. Calculations of the heat energy released in this process shows vast amounts of energy being released in even garden variety thunderstorms. 
The National Weather Service, through their NOAA web site, and links from the Severe Storms Laboratory in Norman, Oklahoma have tons of information on tornadoes and thunderstorms. Enjoy!
Yo_Mama
(8,303 posts)http://www.universetoday.com/75695/how-do-tornadoes-form/
NOAA page with more detailed info:
http://www.spc.noaa.gov/faq/tornado/
The damage is caused by the winds and the debris that the winds pick up, not the precip. Your theory is wrong and doesn't even make sense.
RobertEarl
(13,685 posts)It isn't precipitation, it is a flood. A narrow directed flood of water, maybe even some hail in it.
Winds do cause some damage, because the wind is blowing already. The wind is so strong it makes the funnel form.
Ask yourself, when looking at a forming tornado, does it drop down from the cloud? Is it the same color as the cloud?
It is the same color and it does drop down from the cloud. It is cloud. The cloud is full of water and ice. The tornado is full of water. They are one and the same.
When that water in the tornado drops to the ground it comes down hard, like a firehose X 100. Ever seen the damage a firehose can do?
RobertEarl
(13,685 posts)The top of a cloud is rising, building higher and higher into colder and colder air. At some point, water freezes, and begins falling. Usually it melts before hitting the ground and turns to rain. If it doesn't melt it is hail on the ground.
Under a building cloud air rises because it is being sucked up by the cloud building. When the cloud begins icing, the top starts dropping. I have seen many a cloud-top just disappear. It doesn't really disappear, it just moves earthward.
So in this theory, the falling ice is held up by the mass of rising air. So the water precipitating is one force going down and is met by the force of rising air. That rising air twists the falling water around at the bottom of the cloud making the funnel.
Around that funnel, the opposing forces involved, feed each other more force. The wind blows harder forming the water into a concentrated force which becomes the funnel. Can't have a funnel without a very strong wind. Indeed, falling rain creates wind, too.
That very strong wind, wrapped around the funnel, at ground level, is now rapidly rising with more force because of the tornado, and that is what makes us think the tornado is sucking.
Top of the cloud is now shrinking because the ice has somewhere to go - down through the funnel. And then, when the ice in the top of the cloud is gone, the tornado is gone also.
In short: Rising air stops the ice from falling. The force of the falling ice overcomes the rising air by forming a funnel. Take away the falling ice and you take away the tornado.
RobertEarl
(13,685 posts)Disturb the top of the cloud. Mess up its building higher.
Hurricanes are often defeated because the tops of the clouds are being blown away from the circulation.
If there was someway of, say, flying a plane thru the top.....?
Thor_MN
(11,843 posts)If the damage was caused by a giant water pik effect, where does the water end up?
RobertEarl
(13,685 posts)These storms move at 30 mph on average.
As the water hits the ground it is blown away by the winds.
As size widens density declines.
Image-in a water pik with an 1/2 inch stream, force is much less than that of a usual narrow 1/8th pik.
Thor_MN
(11,843 posts)Doesn't make it any more likely though. If this were happening with any regularity, there would (deep) channels dug into the ground. In places where the path crossed a road, you would see extensive removal of earth, then the scoured road where the energy was used up on the harder pavement then channeling again. Most pictures that I have seen, there is grass within feet, not inches of scoured pavement. The winds move mostly parallel to the ground, not perpendicular.
Interesting take, and possibly even has some effect, but I'd have to say doubtful that it explains the major effect of tornadoes.
RobertEarl
(13,685 posts)Just that it is the genesis of tornado formation.
As for direct impact on the ground, the air is moving so rapidly, as you state "parallel to the ground", that sideways dispersion of the water becomes like the half inch wide waterpik.
But on a structure 12 feet in the air, the water column would be much denser and still moving straight down. An upside down T is what such a column would look like.
Thor_MN
(11,843 posts)A column of water could not form without an already existing vortex. Something needs to exist to condense and concentrate that water vapor, so the water can not be the initiator.
Liquid water, added to high velocity wind, increases it's density, therefore it's potential to do damage, but you can't get a column of liquid water in the air without wind to gather it.
I think that the people who study tornadoes would have long ago discovered the "virtual bathtub" of water that is inherent in your theory.
RobertEarl
(13,685 posts)It is cloud being funneled to the earth. The cloud is made of mostly water.
The wind shapes the cloud into the funnel.
A tornadic cloud is one that has rising air, that is where the sucking idea comes from. Air that is rising does so because the pressure above it is lower: it is being sucked up. As it rises it turns in a circle. That air circulating upwards squeezes the water which is falling from the cloud into the funnel shape.
Instead of the rain falling in a broad pattern, it is shaped and concentrated into the funnel.
Thor_MN
(11,843 posts)The water can't start the tornado, if it requires a vortex to gather it. The vortex IS the tornado.
RobertEarl
(13,685 posts)It takes two to tango.
The water does what water does... it falls from the cloud.
The wind is already circulating because the top of the cloud is still rising and drawing in air. There are very complicated winds in the cloud but we do know it is drawing in the air. All rain clouds do that.
Then the tornado falls from the cloud. You can see the vids of the tornado coming down out of the cloud. The funnel does not rise from the ground, it begins at the bottom of the cloud and drops to earth.
In that funnel is cloud matter: water. The wind is barely visible, but the funnel, being full of water, is quite visible. Or am I the only one who sees this? It seems I am.....
The strongest part of the vortex is that which is being displaced by the water which is in the funnel of water falling. The winds gain force as the water hits the ground and spreads out, like the upside down T.
It's a dance of wind and water. Wind going up, water falling down.
Thor_MN
(11,843 posts)Seems to me that the dancing is being done to support the importance of water falling out of a thunderstorm....
