The meteorologist warns that it is the n ° 1 sign a tornado is preparing
The rotary rain curtains could mean that one is about to touch near you.
The unhappy truth is that violent weather events tend to catch most people offset. In the case of tornadoes, which starts as a chain of thunderstorms or a passing front can quickly degenerate into a serious emergency. The best weather forecasts generally include a kind of warning if there is even a distant possibility that will be completed in your region. But if you are looking to stay safe, meteorologists say there is an important sign that a tornado could prepare near you.
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Rotary rain curtains are a typical element of tornado -producing supercells.
We all have our own red flags on the approach of bad weather. For some, he notices that fauna has become strangely silent. For others, it rolls from thunder in the distance while daylight takes a strange shade. But there is a specific element that could alert you to a serious tornado that attacks, according to the meteorologist Matthew Cappucci .
In a recent room in The Washington Post , Cappucci explains that he was storming through Oklahoma Panhandle earlier this month, when he saw something from far ahead that made him realize that the conditions were about to get worse.
"The rain flowed in torrents-it was visible while the dark curtains descending clouds," he explains. But while the rain drops striking the windshield of his vehicle blowed from left to right in the wind, he could see about 100 meters in front that the droplets moved in the opposite direction.
"The National Weather Service (NWS) had issued a tornado warning, but I had lost cell service about 30 minutes earlier. I was flying blind," he wrote. "With a start, I realized what was going on: the tornado was about to train on me."
According to the NWS, the most common indicators of bad weather Include a flanking base of clouds in front of an area without a precipitation near the ground, clouds of cumulonimbus and high -range mammatus, and which is known as a wall that passes under larger clouds just behind the rain without rain.
The agency explains that even if a wall cloud can linger for 10 to 20 minutes without the formation of a tornado, it can also start to show the rotation. This can sometimes be spotted by noting that smaller clouds along the line are sucked in as the wall cloud moves.
As the cyclonic nature of a tornado suggests, this sudden ascending current is accompanied by a current descending current (RFD), which can resemble a clear or bright point in the southwest of the wall cloud, in the form of rain curtains, according to NWS.
In the case of Cappucci, its location meant that the rain torrents could cover the visible condensation funnel which officially means a tornado when it touches the ground. Fortunately, the recovery of the movements of the droplets helped him to achieve where he was heading.
"I was sailing in the rotating part of the northern storm and I was in a region, meteorologists call" the bear cage "," he explains. "If I was not careful, I was driving directly into a development tornado."
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Cappucci caught his heartbreaking meeting on video.
Like any meteorologist with storm trigger, Cappucci released his camera and filmed the tornado in development . After noticing the "disorienting" dance sheets in front of him, he saw the funnel cloud starting to fall towards the ground.
"A few moments later, I was driving east to Highway 64 in the Rural County of Cimarron," wrote Cappucci The post . "To my right, or to the south, the funnel came down, suddenly becoming more easily visible as humidity in the condensed vortex." He explains that when a tornado approaches, the vortex becomes more intense and causes a sudden drop in air pressure which in turn causes a condensed atmospheric humidity.
Cappucci says that the tornado was only visible for a few minutes before losing it again in the thick rain. He believes that he probably produced solid winds of 120 MPH, but without contact data with a building or an object, the NWS classified it as an "EF-U" (or "unknown") on the improved Fujita scale which is used to determine the force of a tornado.
“Seeing the nearby rotating curtains was spectacular as a meteorologist - although disturbing. This forced me to slow down and stop while developing circulation crossed the roadway, ”he explains.
There are a few other signs that a tornado is about to train.
Since all the tornadoes are not accompanied by rain, it may be useful to keep an eye on other clues. According to the NWS, this includes entrance strips, which are "flaps of clouds of low cumulus clouds extending from the main storm tower generally south-east or south". Because these training courses suggest a low -level air gathering, this could point out an intensification, especially if they seem in a spiral.
Another clue could be what is called the "Beaver tail", which, according to the NWS, is "a strip of smooth and flat clouds extending from the eastern edge of the base without rain to the east or northeast", generally bending near the southern edge of the place where it rains or greets. The agency says its presence indicates that rotation is likely.
But even with so much to look for, everything is not perceptible to the naked eye. The NWS points out that tornadoes can always be in contact with the ground even if there is no visible cloud funnel. For this reason, you should look for a shelter if you receive a tornado warning for your region.