Occasionally, a tornado will spin in an opposite direction to most tornadoes (which usually rotate counter clockwise in the northern hemisphere). Why does this happen?
The fact that most tornadoes rotate counterclockwise indicates that the rotation of the earth is an important factor in the formation process. For smaller dust devils about half rotate clockwise and about half rotate counterclockwise, indicating that the rotation of the earth does not dominate the formation process. The occasional reverse rotation tornado could have been created in a different way than usual. One possible example is that eddies of different directions of rotation were alternately shed in the lee of a thunderstorm acting as an obstacle to the mean flow.
Related Questions
- Occasionally, a tornado will spin in an opposite direction to most tornadoes (which usually rotate counter clockwise in the northern hemisphere). Why does this happen?
- Do dust devils and tornadoes spin counter clockwise in the Northern Hemisphere and clockwise in the Southern Hemisphere?
- What would happen to earth if it were to spin in the opposite direction?
