Tornados outside of the US?

Originally posted by Anonymous ATS
The torn in perth was not even in my books a tornado but a rather large willy willy,dust devil whatever you want to call

Errr, no

Dust devils and Willy Willy's are different phenomenen. It was a weak tornado, but it is still tornado produced by a squall line which is common for Perth in Winter. (I actually work for the Australian Met Bureau)

Mini tornado sure but the only place that gets huge tornados is the States and like the original author who started this thread it is rather odd why no place on earth comes close to the size and power of a usa tornado

Mini Tornadoes do not exist. Among my meteorologist colleagues, the use of mini in front of anything like tornado or cyclone is forbidden. It either a tornado or it is not one

And yes the US gets the strongest tornadoes, due to the close proximity of clashing warm, humid and cool air masses. Its just the geography (and topography helps) that gives them so much power

Quit a while back, and on another forum, I got into a dispute with guy from the UK who said they had just as many tornadoes as the USA. I showed him that it was not uncommon for Indiana to have as many tornadoes in one WEEK as they get all year long. There were even a couple of instances where we had more tornadoes in a single DAY than they got that whole year.

That having been said, it does seem that tornadoes are on the rise in places where they were previously pretty rare. (See California for an example.)

reply to post by sir_chancealot


Yeah Uk gets quite a few, but no where gets close to the central US. The conditions there are just too perfect.

reply to post by OzWeatherman



I always wondered why Australia didn't get the large tornados we do but then I looked at a topographical map of the continent and noticed that you don't have the Rockies on one side and the Adirondack and great Smokies on the other shore. I have to ask a question though? Do you get the 'fingerling' type that has like 5-12 differant fingers of tornadic funnels that literaly go up and touch down in a line and wreak devastation over large areas. I hope you understand what Im asking here?

Zindo

reply to post by ZindoDoone


Not really, we dont have the energy. Most our tornadoes occur with cold weather storms. There isnt enough convective energy to sustain tornadoes for that long

Some parts of the country inland get some ripper storms in summer like country new south wales, they have a mountain range running through the middle which feeds into warm moist air forming supercells. Also almost half the country is tropical (i live in the tropics) and we get pretty much storms daily in the summer