Record breaking tornado question

[waltham41]

New record set 2.6 mile funnel. My question is is that measurement the top of the funnel where it joins the clouds or the bottom of the funnel where it is on the ground?

If that is the ground measurement, that is mind boggling to me.

 

[Spata]

i believe the width is measured at the bottom.

 

[vvvvvvv]

New record set 2.6 mile funnel. My question is is that measurement the top of the funnel where it joins the clouds or the bottom of the funnel where it is on the ground?

If that is the ground measurement, that is mind boggling to me.

On the ground. And it is not necessarily the condensation funnel, but the actual tornado itself. Many tornadoes have condensation funnels that never reach the ground while the tornado is on the ground.

 

[waltham41]

Wow..... talk about the hand of God..... Given the classical shape of a twister, then a 2.5 mile wide at the bottom twister is somewhere in the neighborhood of 5ish miles at the top, give or take.

Its truly amazing to me that more people are not hurt when one of these monsters rolls through.

 

[Dale00]

Wow..... talk about the hand of God..... Given the classical shape of a twister, then a 2.5 mile wide at the bottom twister is somewhere in the neighborhood of 5ish miles at the top, give or take.

Nope - wedge tornadoes are not that much wider at the top than on the ground.

 

[mksmth]

I asked that in another thread but i got no answer.
From what i gathered on the WWW is that the measurement is estimated from how wide is was on Radar, which to me would include all the condensation bands/ Isnt that what radar is hitting is the rain/debris. There is no way the wind speeds were EF5 scale for 2.5 miles. I could be wrong though.

Travis Meyer has been very outspoken about how the NWS is basing the wind speeds and essentially the EF scale on winds several hundred feet about ground and thats wrong. I guess the actual ground speeds were lower than EF5. Thats doesnt make it any better but we do need to be sure they are measuring the part that is actually causing the damage.

 

[travisstorma]

They used radar velocity data and measured the 2.6 miles from the 65 MPH threshold on either side. Per NWS OUN Webinar

 

[okiebryan]

I was out there yesterday. Saw tornado damage for 2 miles as I drove north through the debris.