<p><a href="https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/what-countries-have-tornadoes" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Some would disagree</a> that they aren't a common occurrence in the UK</p>
<blockquote>
<p>While the U.S. may have more tornadoes overall, England actually holds
the Guinness World Record for the highest number of tornadoes per a
square kilometer/mile thanks to its much smaller total land area.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>But yeah, they tend to generally be weaker and short-lived.  Certainly not quite the US (east of the Rockies) or places like Bangladesh, Argentina, or Australia.  But <a href="https://eswd.eu/cgi-bin/eswd.cgi" rel="nofollow noreferrer">much of Europe does have its share of activity</a>.</p>
<p>I think a better way of thinking about the formation of tornadoes is that air that already has some natural twist to it tightens up and accumulates.  It's not like air got blocked and just happened to wrap in on itself.  (That can indeed also generate rotation... you may well have noticed when something like a wall blocks wind flow and causes transient eddies... but those are very short-lived, and it is likewise in the larger atmosphere... occasionally storms and boundaries can interact to bring about temporary rotation despite not being favored by the overall wind profile... happens quite a bit here in Florida with our meandering afternoon thunderstorms... but they typically aren't substantial)</p>
<p>Now, how does the air have &quot;natural twist&quot;???  Well its as simple as whenever there's the right orientation of wind shear (wind moving different speeds/directions at different height).  <a href="https://www.facebook.com/scijinks/videos/1651066855260290/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">This NOAA SciJinks video</a> offers a bit of a visual idea on how vertical differences in wind become horizontal rotation, basically it is tilted by the rising air.  So substantial tornadoes are more than just air randomly ending up curling back on itself... but instead a substantial buildup of this widespread rotational motion into an area.</p>
<p>Why does rotation tighten and accumulate in thunderstorms (and larger systems)?  Low pressure pulls air in.  Air moves from higher pressure to lower pressure.  So that air (and its rotation) tends to build up at the low pressure.</p>
<p>And these concepts all being to answer your question.  There actually is a lot of similarity between a tornado and a whirlpool of water draining out of your sink... sure, you can disrupt it... but unless you continue to substantially agitate it, the momentum causing it to rotate will sort itself out and begin rotating again quite quickly.  Likewise supercell thunderstorms can be temporarily disrupted by interruption from other storms moving into them unfavorably... but will often reorganize.</p>
<p>And what about the bottom end as you mention?  The thing is, typical tornadoes form from the top downward.  Supercells have these large mesocyclones develop that cover an area of like 10 km (5 miles) with strong rotating.  And then from that large region of rotation, something can consolidate and start to work down the updraft until reaching the ground.</p>
<p>Tornadoes actually regularly fall apart in most supercells even.  They don't remain in the right position in relation to the changing upper levels of the storm, for example (typically occluding/getting left behind by the moving storm).  But all that rotation making up the mesocyclone means it's often only a matter of time before the next tornado forms (or sometimes even at <a href="https://x.com/WesleyLuginbyhl/status/1750681880624591012" rel="nofollow noreferrer">the same time</a>!)</p>
<p>If the rotation in the tornado is strong/organized enough, it should be able to handle canyons and such (the low pressure induces the rising motion in the air of the canyon into the tornado just as it does on flat land).</p>
<p>There actually was an incredible tornado this past winter in Madison, Tennessee, USA where a power substation was hit causing a massive explosion.  <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BEpXCc2EhqY" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Here's a decent video of it</a>.  For a few moments the visibility of the tornado was reduced... but it's likely that was because the cloud droplets nearby were all evaporated, rather than because the rotating tornadic winds actually were disrupted.  And despite the explosion, the tornado was actually very early in a long track of its life:
<a href="https://i.sstatic.net/5EzxdpHO.png" rel="nofollow noreferrer"><img src="https://i.sstatic.net/5EzxdpHO.png" alt="enter image description here" /></a></p>
<p>There's actually a lot more about that tornado, including some incredible videos, and further discussion of the thought of disrupting tornadoes in <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2023/12/13/nashville-hendersonville-tornado-explosion-fireball/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">this useful Washington Post article</a>.</p>
<p>In the end it doesn't seem it'll be easy to disrupt a tornado overall.  You may be able to knock it out briefly with very strong weaponry, but unless you hit it with something at the scale of the mesocyclone of the storm, it may well still be only a very temporary blow.</p>

CC BY-SA 4.0
2024-06-22T06:07:15.067Z
2024-06-22T21:15:11.603Z
2024-06-22T21:15:11.603Z
JeopardyTempest
<p>I'm from the UK, so my knowledge of the physics/nature of tornadoes is minimal as they aren't a common occurrence here and aren't part of the school syllabus. From my limited knowledge, is a flow of air (i.e. wind) that has ended up curling back upon itself, thus forming the swirl?</p>
<p>Like a whirlpool of water draining out of a sink, could a large enough kinetic force disrupt and disperse this flow and break up the spin?</p>
<p>Basically, could a large (preferably non-nuclear) bomb or weapon &quot;blow the tornado apart?   What would happen if the bottom end (i.e the part touching the ground) passed over a large canyon or valley, would making it disconnect from the ground also disrupt its spin and cause it to disperse?</p>

<tornado><severe-weather>
Dispersal of a tornado/twister
Matt Bartlett
# Dispersal of a tornado/twister

(Asked by: username_0 on 2024-06-20)

I'm from the UK, so my knowledge of the physics/nature of tornadoes is minimal as they aren't a common occurrence here and aren't part of the school syllabus. From my limited knowledge, is a flow of air (i.e. wind) that has ended up curling back upon itself, thus forming the swirl?

Like a whirlpool of water draining out of a sink, could a large enough kinetic force disrupt and disperse this flow and break up the spin?

Basically, could a large (preferably non-nuclear) bomb or weapon "blow the tornado apart? What would happen if the bottom end (i.e the part touching the ground) passed over a large canyon or valley, would making it disconnect from the ground also disrupt its spin and cause it to disperse?

**Tags:** tornado, severe-weather


---

## 1 answers

### Answer by username_1 on 2024-06-22. Score: 1

[Some would disagree](https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/what-countries-have-tornadoes) that they aren't a common occurrence in the UK

> While the U.S. may have more tornadoes overall, England actually holds
> the Guinness World Record for the highest number of tornadoes per a
> square kilometer/mile thanks to its much smaller total land area.

But yeah, they tend to generally be weaker and short-lived. Certainly not quite the US (east of the Rockies) or places like Bangladesh, Argentina, or Australia. But [much of Europe does have its share of activity](https://eswd.eu/cgi-bin/eswd.cgi).

I think a better way of thinking about the formation of tornadoes is that air that already has some natural twist to it tightens up and accumulates. It's not like air got blocked and just happened to wrap in on itself. (That can indeed also generate rotation... you may well have noticed when something like a wall blocks wind flow and causes transient eddies... but those are very short-lived, and it is likewise in the larger atmosphere... occasionally storms and boundaries can interact to bring about temporary rotation despite not being favored by the overall wind profile... happens quite a bit here in Florida with our meandering afternoon thunderstorms... but they typically aren't substantial)

Now, how does the air have "natural twist"??? Well its as simple as whenever there's the right orientation of wind shear (wind moving different speeds/directions at different height). [This NOAA SciJinks video](https://www.facebook.com/scijinks/videos/1651066855260290/) offers a bit of a visual idea on how vertical differences in wind become horizontal rotation, basically it is tilted by the rising air. So substantial tornadoes are more than just air randomly ending up curling back on itself... but instead a substantial buildup of this widespread rotational motion into an area.

Why does rotation tighten and accumulate in thunderstorms (and larger systems)? Low pressure pulls air in. Air moves from higher pressure to lower pressure. So that air (and its rotation) tends to build up at the low pressure.

And these concepts all being to answer your question. There actually is a lot of similarity between a tornado and a whirlpool of water draining out of your sink... sure, you can disrupt it... but unless you continue to substantially agitate it, the momentum causing it to rotate will sort itself out and begin rotating again quite quickly. Likewise supercell thunderstorms can be temporarily disrupted by interruption from other storms moving into them unfavorably... but will often reorganize.

And what about the bottom end as you mention? The thing is, typical tornadoes form from the top downward. Supercells have these large mesocyclones develop that cover an area of like 10 km (5 miles) with strong rotating. And then from that large region of rotation, something can consolidate and start to work down the updraft until reaching the ground.

Tornadoes actually regularly fall apart in most supercells even. They don't remain in the right position in relation to the changing upper levels of the storm, for example (typically occluding/getting left behind by the moving storm). But all that rotation making up the mesocyclone means it's often only a matter of time before the next tornado forms (or sometimes even at [the same time](https://x.com/WesleyLuginbyhl/status/1750681880624591012)!)

If the rotation in the tornado is strong/organized enough, it should be able to handle canyons and such (the low pressure induces the rising motion in the air of the canyon into the tornado just as it does on flat land).

There actually was an incredible tornado this past winter in Madison, Tennessee, USA where a power substation was hit causing a massive explosion. [Here's a decent video of it](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BEpXCc2EhqY). For a few moments the visibility of the tornado was reduced... but it's likely that was because the cloud droplets nearby were all evaporated, rather than because the rotating tornadic winds actually were disrupted. And despite the explosion, the tornado was actually very early in a long track of its life:
[![enter image description here](https://i.sstatic.net/5EzxdpHO.png)](https://i.sstatic.net/5EzxdpHO.png)

There's actually a lot more about that tornado, including some incredible videos, and further discussion of the thought of disrupting tornadoes in [this useful Washington Post article](https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2023/12/13/nashville-hendersonville-tornado-explosion-fireball/).

In the end it doesn't seem it'll be easy to disrupt a tornado overall. You may be able to knock it out briefly with very strong weaponry, but unless you hit it with something at the scale of the mesocyclone of the storm, it may well still be only a very temporary blow.


---

