So why can't we dissipate Tornado's

[Zstream]

Why can't we dissipate a Tornado? I mean if we send a blast wave to the top of a Tornado, it could dissipate the energy causing a Tornado?

Similar to causing a large shockwave?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xLiv80riQDQ

 

[PottedMeat]

even if it did work you'd have to deploy it on very very short notice in the middle of nowhere at a small location - $$$.



i'd imagine it would be expensive too to have a guy driving around with a howitzer in the back of a pickup or a plane looping about with bombs

 

[Biftheunderstudy]

Well, just a quick back of the envelope calculation:

According to the internet, the average rotational energy in a tornado is 10,000 killowatt hours. This corresponds to about 3.6E10 Joules.

Now, find a bomb with the equivalent energy: 3.6E10 Joules is about 86 tons of tnt from the joule to kiloton conversion. From wiki, the most likely explosive would be ANFO, but 100 tonnes of the stuff is quite a lot...

That at least would put you in the right ballpark to dissipate a tornado.

 

[wirednuts]

and just when you have everything setup right and you launch that shit over a city thats about to get hit, it misses its target and lands in a populated area, leveling even more shit then the tornado would itself.

 

[A5]

Well, just a quick back of the envelope calculation:

According to the internet, the average rotational energy in a tornado is 10,000 killowatt hours. This corresponds to about 3.6E10 Joules.

Now, find a bomb with the equivalent energy: 3.6E10 Joules is about 86 tons of tnt from the joule to kiloton conversion. From wiki, the most likely explosive would be ANFO, but 100 tonnes of the stuff is quite a lot...

That at least would put you in the right ballpark to dissipate a tornado.

Yeah and then your 100 ton ANFO bomb devastates an even larger area than the tornado . At least it's not as silly of a question as the people who ask about dissipating hurricanes (which would require a significant portion of the world's nuclear arsenal...).

Best bet is to just keep increasing radar resolution and warning times like we have been for the last 50 years...

 

[Evadman]

Dissipating the tornado is not required. If the wall cloud could be rotated into the horizontal (or lifted vertically off the ground), it would also solve the problem.

 

[William Gaatjes]

Dissipating the tornado is not required. If the wall cloud could be rotated into the horizontal (or lifted vertically off the ground), it would also solve the problem.

This indeed. IMHO a tornado is a sort of self sustaining force of nature.
The tornado functions in it's own way no different that as the old mechanical resonating spring or the resonating LC- circuit. If once could add just another flow of wind enough to disrupt the tornado, it will fall apart on it's own.
We could write :A tornado can also consume itself.
A tornado can only do what it does while it can sustain it self.

Disrupting a tornado is far easier to do then dissipating a tornado. Use the energy of a tornado against the tornado. It is all in the flow of winds. IIRC the most dangerous winds and storms do not flow continuously, but in a pulsating manner. Transferring energy and feeding any oscillation with a resonance frequency similar to the cycle time of transferring energy from wind to the object. For example : Winds to waves. Winds to trees. Winds to bridges. Winds to other winds.

 

[bunnyfubbles]

This indeed. IMHO a tornado is a sort of self sustaining force of nature.
The tornado functions in it's own way no different that as the old mechanical resonating spring or the resonating LC- circuit. If once could add just another flow of wind enough to disrupt the tornado, it will fall apart on it's own.
We could write :A tornado can also consume itself.
A tornado can only do what it does while it can sustain it self.

Disrupting a tornado is far easier to do then dissipating a tornado. Use the energy of a tornado against the tornado. It is all in the flow of winds. IIRC the most dangerous winds and storms do not flow continuously, but in a pulsating manner. Transferring energy and feeding any oscillation with a resonance frequency similar to the cycle time of transferring energy from wind to the object. For example : Winds to waves. Winds to trees. Winds to bridges. Winds to other winds.

I don't think tornadoes care about your opinion, humble or not.

 

[William Gaatjes]

I don't think tornadoes care about your opinion, humble or not.

I also do not think tornadoes care about my opinion.

I would think weather tornadoes care about the rotation and the rotation speed of the earth, temperature and composition of the many different layers of air. With composition being the water molecules and other particles(cloud formation but also think of dust tornadoes). If you want one to not be self sustaining (for of course just a while), you need to make it unstable.

It is similar as lightning. Lightning can come from certain types of clouds but also from dust clouds such as sandstorms or during volcanic eruptions.
Tornadoes are not a weather phenomenon only.

It is "far easier" to let a tornado dissolve it self then to dissipate the energy of a tornado when looking at energy requirements. As with everything else, the energy has to come from somewhere. Remove or weaken one of the various sources in such a way, i would say that the tornado will consume it self and becomes unstable rapidly.


Tornadoes are pretty rare and unique. That is a weakness becomes it means many requirements must be met for a tornado to come to existence.

 

[William Gaatjes]

I was just thinking about air pressure and vacuums.
I remembered that a tornado does not start on the ground but high up in the air. It seems to me that while the funnel of the tornado is still forming, the air pressure inside the funnel is not that low yet and not that strong. As soon as the tornado touches the ground, the vacuum really starts to arise. It is similar as a vacuum cleaner where you can raise the vacuum for a short while by blocking the end of the pipe with your hand and then removing your hand. If you do this repeatedly you notice there is a repetition that is depended on the strength of the motor of the vacuum cleaner and the strength you have in your arm to keep it just open enough for the highest vacuum. I wonder if this is also the case with a tornado. When the funnel touches and moves over the ground, there should be some pulsating change in the pressure that should actually increase the rotation. And for some reason, i wonder about how rotating winds can actually work like a pretty good air tight seal.

I tried to visualized how it starts, i do not know if it is correct though.
It is just a model i visualized.
The rotation of the earth causes strong winds to turn on the horizontal plane. Rapid uprising winds are another field(imagine as a large array of vectors simultaneously) of force creating a tilt from the horizontal plane to the vertical plane with respect to the rotating winds(The rotating direction starts out horizontal but slowly turns 90 degrees). The tilt may continue until the rotation is 180 degrees meaning the rotating winds are upside down and the rotation is reversed. Thus rotating now in the other way. This causes now another vortex with a counter rotation against the original rotation. This counter rotation causes multiple wild twists of air from which the tornado will start to form. When these twist start to synchronize, the strength will increase and the funnel will start to form. When the funnel touches the ground, the vacuum will rise rapidly causing the upper layers of rotating air of the tornado in the cloud to actually experience a counter force. This is an energy storing principle inside the upper layers of air. When the pressure inside the funnel rises for a short while because of a vacuum leak, the air above the tornado experiences instead of the counter force, now an easier path to flow and increases in speed because of increase in kinetic energy that is released by the decrease of the vacuum in the center(inside the funnel). This causes the air pressure inside the funnel to drop once again. The mouth of the funnel sucks itself to the ground much stronger once again and the cycle repeats itself. The high rotating winds experience a counterforce once again, the air pressure inside the funnel will rise again when energy is stored at max and the mouth of the funnel will detach after that the vacuum will drop, the high winds can release energy and speed up, the vacuum will become stronger and again the cycle will start.

When i was thinking about this i watched some documentaries about tornadoes and it seems to be like that. IMHO It is the rapid oscillating changes in the vacuum inside the funnel that actually make the tornado stronger. The mouth of the funnel should be hopping around on the ground.
In reality, this hopping is little because objects on the ground will cause the pulsating vacuum because of creating holes in the "air seal" of rotating winds.

With vacuum in the funnel i do not mean real vacuum, just a much lower air pressure then when compared outside the funnel. The rotating winds actually function as an air tight seal. Not for long of course. But the winds are continuously refreshed.

It is a nice visualization, i do not know if it holds up...

 

[shula]

Be interesting to see what affect a tanker truck full of liquid nitrogen, or oxygen driven into the path of a Tornado might have? Bet the insurance companies would rather pay for that, than a few damaged homes. (See: What causes a tornado to dissapate).

 

[nerp]

It would take too much energy using the technology we have at hand. Simple answer.

 

[Hugo Drax]

Why can't we dissipate a Tornado? I mean if we send a blast wave to the top of a Tornado, it could dissipate the energy causing a Tornado?

Similar to causing a large shockwave?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xLiv80riQDQ

A Nuclear bomb in the 15-20kt yield range dropped in the center of a tornado will do the trick.

 

[JeffMD]

Dont forget tornadoes touch and go at a speed that is probably too fast for any kind of a large missile to launch and arrive at in time.

Also me thinks in order to create enough compression power to rip apart a tornado, you are going to have far more collateral damage to buildings on the grounds than the tornado would do.

 

[William Gaatjes]

Reading my own posts, before the tornado touches the ground, the funnel should be wider than after it has touched the ground and the vacuum is raised.
The funnel should decrease in diameter a bit.
Anybody ever seen this happening ? That would be nice for the idea i wrote up.

 

[MtnMan]

A shock wave with enough energy to disrupt a tornado would probably cause more collateral damage than the tornado itself.

 

[sm625]

Fly a drone loaded with LN2 into the tornado at about 500ft? Or have the drone hang a tank of LN2 and release it into the funnel. Maybe that would be cheaper. But it shouldnt be too expensive to design a drone that can fly into a tornado and release its payload and then crashland safely. It would certainly be cheaper than a F35. But where is the profit?

 

[SAAA]

A Nuclear bomb in the 15-20kt yield range dropped in the center of a tornado will do the trick.

I'm pretty sure a nuke will do any city near the tornado too. ()

Btw if that 100ton of tnt estimation is true then a nuke is overkill enough that it should mitigate/stop a hurricane.
Maybe not completely but the overpressure in the right spot could easily dampen it... or increase it's strength! D:

Still... we already use some kind of explosives to prevent avalanches and hailstorms so maybe one day we'll have a similar solution.

 

[Puffnstuff]

I believe that if we could microwave and heat the downdraft side of the structure equalizing the temperatures that we could neutralize the rotation and stop the development of the tornado.

 

[William Gaatjes]

I'm pretty sure a nuke will do any city near the tornado too. ()

Btw if that 100ton of tnt estimation is true then a nuke is overkill enough that it should mitigate/stop a hurricane.
Maybe not completely but the overpressure in the right spot could easily dampen it... or increase it's strength! D:

Still... we already use some kind of explosives to prevent avalanches and hailstorms so maybe one day we'll have a similar solution.

I also wondered about it, the atmosphere is not static. It is not that when you take out the storm, that the atmosphere is quiet. Storms form because there is energy present in the atmosphere. That storm would immediately reform and then it would be back again.

 

[Tumaras]

Equally unrealistic as a nuclear bomb, but technically another solution to prevent (rather than disrupt) tornadoes would be to fill the Gulf of Mexico. The propensity for tornados in the US is to the unique geographic situation of very warm air coming up from the Gulf slamming into cooler air from the West and Canada. Filling the Gulf would eliminate most of them. Never going to happen for many reasons , but just something to ponder if we're talking dropping nukes.

I'd think a far more realistic option to disrupt ones that have already formed might come from directed energy or large military size airborne lasers altering pressure in the tornado enough to break it up, even if that's probably 10-20 years off from this type of use if really feasible.

 

[BrainEater]

While I agree that dissipating a tornado is an interesting thought , it's not 'reeeealy' a good plan.Pop a big tank of LN2 at the base of a tornado , I think it would dissipate forsure.

Here's the thing :
Thunderstorms,tornados/hurricanes are how The Earth dissipates energy.The energy you add to the earth (making the LN2)is more than the energy used to dissipate the storm so it's no-win.

We already do cloud seeding which is very effective in mitigating thunderstorms.Remove the water , remove the energy.

Flooding now becomes the big issue.(thunderclouds hold many thousands of tons of water)

..

 

[WHAMPOM]

Why can't we dissipate a Tornado? I mean if we send a blast wave to the top of a Tornado, it could dissipate the energy causing a Tornado?

Similar to causing a large shockwave?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xLiv80riQDQ

You do realize that it would take a sub-kiloton atomic bomb to do it?

 

[DrPizza]

I think that dissipating tornadoes is the wrong way to solve the problem. Incidentally, when this thread started, this comment wouldn't have been timely, but it's been suggested that building a large wall, roughly 1000 feet tall, would decrease number and severity of tornadoes, a lot better than a wall would decrease the number of illegal immigrants.

What may be possible in the future, with better prediction ability, is disrupting the conditions that result in tornadoes. Any approach is necessarily going to need to be balanced against costs - not every tornado watch ultimately sees tornadoes forming. There are 1500 tornadoes in the US each year - most do only minor damage in the grand scheme of things - a few houses damaged or destroyed at most. Unless cheap to disrupt from forming in the first place, the ones that would be the wisest to stop are those that are more likely to develop into F5 tornadoes that threaten cities like Joplin. Thus, more research into forecasting tornadoes is necessary before realistically stopping tornadoes. As an analogy, let's say there's a severe risk of wildfires. Imagine that you knew exactly where a wildfire was going to form an hour in advance, and had time to dump a few tanker planes of water and retardant on that area. But certainly, in a severe risk of wildfires, you cannot dump water and retardant on all areas prone to a fire.

 

[Red Squirrel]

I wonder if such a wall could be composed of air or other gases, basically you have a medium height wall/building that houses compressors and other equipment, pressure tanks etc, and large jets that point upwards and retractable caps/housings to keep rain and snow out. As the Tornado approaches it would fire the jets and create basically a gas wall, the tornado would basically be flipped over and caused to turn horizontally.

The amount of energy/pressure needed to do this would probably be insane though.