Tornado family
Encyclopedia
A tornado family is a series of tornado
es spawned by the same supercell
. These families form a line of successive or parallel tornado paths and can cover a short span or a vast distance. Tornado families are sometimes mistaken as a single continuous tornado, especially prior to the 1970s. Sometimes the tornado tracks can overlap and expert analysis is necessary to determine whether or not damage was created by a family or a single tornado. In some cases, different tornadoes of a tornado family merge, making discerning whether an event was continuous or not even more difficult.
Some tornado damage remains a mystery even today due to a lack of evidence. The Tri-State Tornado
was one such tornado. It could either have been the longest single tornado recorded, or a family of tornadoes. New re-analyses suggests that it was one continuous tornado, however, many other very long track tornado events were later found to be tornado families, notably the Woodward, Oklahoma tornado family
of April 1947 and the Charleston-Mattoon, Illinois tornado family of May 1917.
Tornado families can be a result of satellite tornadoes, cyclic tornadogenesis, or some combination of both.
Tornado
A tornado is a violent, dangerous, rotating column of air that is in contact with both the surface of the earth and a cumulonimbus cloud or, in rare cases, the base of a cumulus cloud. They are often referred to as a twister or a cyclone, although the word cyclone is used in meteorology in a wider...
es spawned by the same supercell
Supercell
A supercell is a thunderstorm that is characterized by the presence of a mesocyclone: a deep, continuously-rotating updraft. For this reason, these storms are sometimes referred to as rotating thunderstorms...
. These families form a line of successive or parallel tornado paths and can cover a short span or a vast distance. Tornado families are sometimes mistaken as a single continuous tornado, especially prior to the 1970s. Sometimes the tornado tracks can overlap and expert analysis is necessary to determine whether or not damage was created by a family or a single tornado. In some cases, different tornadoes of a tornado family merge, making discerning whether an event was continuous or not even more difficult.
Some tornado damage remains a mystery even today due to a lack of evidence. The Tri-State Tornado
Tri-State Tornado
The Tri-State Tornado of Wednesday, March 18, 1925, was the deadliest tornado in U.S. history. With 695 confirmed fatalities, the tornado killed more than twice as many as the second deadliest, the 1840 Great Natchez Tornado...
was one such tornado. It could either have been the longest single tornado recorded, or a family of tornadoes. New re-analyses suggests that it was one continuous tornado, however, many other very long track tornado events were later found to be tornado families, notably the Woodward, Oklahoma tornado family
Glazier-Higgins-Woodward Tornadoes
The 1947 Glazier–Higgins–Woodward tornadoes was a system of related tornadoes that swept through Texas, Oklahoma, and Kansas on April 9, 1947. Most of the damage and all the deaths are still blamed on one large F5 tornado, known as the Glazier-Higgins-Woodward Tornado, that traveled nearly 125...
of April 1947 and the Charleston-Mattoon, Illinois tornado family of May 1917.
Tornado families can be a result of satellite tornadoes, cyclic tornadogenesis, or some combination of both.