Alien Invasion? No, It’s Just a Massive Supercell Storm
Supercells are a class of thunderstorm characterized by towering cloud columns and a central mass of rotating air. They also carry the potential to spawn dangerous tornadoes, like the storm that devastated Moore, Oklahoma last month, killing 24 people.
The rotating, barrel-like “wall cloud” that hangs beneath the cloud ceiling is the column through which supercell storms “breathe in” hot, humid air, creating a powerful rotating updraft, says NASA Goddard Space Flight Center atmospheric scientist Anthony Didlake.
“Generally in the Great Plains, you have southerly winds bringing warm, moist air from the Gulf of Mexico near the surface, and westerly winds bring cooler, drier air off of the Rockies,“ Didlake said. The angle at which these forces collide is what sets off the eddy-like spin of the supercell. As the cloud mothership creeps to the south in the video, it “exhales” heavy rainfall and hail in its wake.
The video is even more stunning.
Source: http://www.wired.com/
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