News DetailTornado in Iceland yesterday!
Posted At: July 28, 2007 @ 10:21 AM
Posted By: Reed Timmer
Related Categories: Tornadoes
This tornado occurred yesterday in a desert region of Iceland called the Skeidararsandur, which is located near the coast between two glaciers. Based on soundings from the area, this appeared to be a "cold-core" setup. These photos were taken by Malfridur Omarsdottir.
Based on these photos, this tornado appears to be a land spout, but there looks to be a low cloud base above the hose. Cold-core setups should be quite common in Iceland, given the strong, occluded, and vertically-stacked low pressure systems that move across the North Atlantic towards England. Back in North America today, the morning model runs are showing some small potential just west of the central Lake Region of Manitoba, but the cap looks to be VERY strong..and convective initiation appears unlikely at this time.
Based on these photos, this tornado appears to be a land spout, but there looks to be a low cloud base above the hose. Cold-core setups should be quite common in Iceland, given the strong, occluded, and vertically-stacked low pressure systems that move across the North Atlantic towards England. Back in North America today, the morning model runs are showing some small potential just west of the central Lake Region of Manitoba, but the cap looks to be VERY strong..and convective initiation appears unlikely at this time.
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LOL that's a landspout! very cool Reed!!
Cool pics!
Reed: The first cloud that went over us last night was a shell cloud..am i getting the right name? That it has the layer on the edge...LOTS of lightning that the windows were constantly rattling, pourdowns, and wind (tons of leaves knocked over). That one lasted from 5:30 am to 6:30 am.
Then at 7am we got hit by storm #2: twice. The first time aound hit us from the north, then circled around and got us from the south! now THAT one was scary. Unfortunately all my rechargable batteries are dead so I got no photos. But I was thinking tornado for sure, seeing how it was the same kind of clouds that produced those 2 funnels I saw on tuesday: low, black, rolling, and FAST.
Still amazing we had all this with 0% chance...
The new RUC fires convection near Yorkton after 7:00 pm CDT tonight. The shear isn't bad up there, so supercells will be possible if the cap can break.
Yeah there having some bad storms in FL maby thay will have a waterspout!
guys do you remeber this video i posted way back when? it's a video with a waterspout coming on shore!
hope you like it ;)
click my name
Covering weather from all over the world. Very cool stuff, Reed. Keep it up.
I wanna run in that. What was it rated F0?
theres a pretty big difference in dewpoints between red deer and coronation...red deer's dewpoint is currently 17
degrees compared to coronation's 8 degrees...the priarie storm prediction center is predicting supercells late this afternoon and evening IF the moisture stays above 15 degrees and the possibility of a spin up along the dryline...i just had a look at the wrf's and there is adequate shear below 700mb, i guess we'll see what goes down! severe thunderstorm watches are up for some areas along the foothills....
Prairie Storm Prediction Center? Where's that from? Not EC, eh?
Kenny yes it was prolly an EF0. Landspouts are at maxamum windspeeds of 65 to 180 mph.
If you have any more questions about this ask me! Deal?
sure caleb lol...
Kenny what did you mean by sure? sure meaning ok or meaning sarcastic?
i gotten a few of my native brotheren together...we are currently doing an old fasioned rain dance lol. ok not really. we need rain!
@Caleb, I mean't it as in Ok.
@Dale, Dale i see some cumulus clouds develloping west of edmonton.
ya theres one started up a samll but a little intence, near edson...looks to hit the barrhead westlock area if it keeps its strength.
65-180 mph for a landspout huh Caleb? I hope you meant 65-100 but more like 70 and below...
yeah dale...that cell you mentioned is apparently dropping nickle sized hail...there is still moisture in the air between edson, edmonton and surrounding areas...we should keep an eye on this one!
That Iceland tube looks interesting. Iceland would be a beautiful place to visit... Anyone ever been there?
Very cool! It looks almost like it might have been sucking some really white sand up into the vortex.. or strange lighting conditions. Any matter awesome pics!
I'm hoping we get something tomorrow evening here in MB.. Wednesday's also looking good but it's still a ways out so it'll probably change.
Tim the way I though of it the sun was shining at an angle making it look white dunno!! It could be sucking up white sand!!
anyone on or near this cell by edson!?!? shes looking nice on radar...if i wasnt 2 hours away id be there!!! Arghghghghg!
i think im gonna go meet it soon here...wish me luck!
hmmm....it was tracking ne...now its tracking east toward ed.
That's crazy! Was this submitted to you? Where did you find these?
I may meet the keeper of the Canadian Red Hyundai this evening.
Nice pics!!
Pouring down outside. Thunderstorm watch issued. Over 13mm of rain in the last couple of hours. It's wet wet wet here in NZ.
Good luck dale...it looks like it's struggling with the cap east of the mountains the last few scans. Hopefully you've been on it for awhile. Let us know if you see anything.
How are things at 731 Birch Corey? Any flea bites yet?
I had to go 14 pages deep into the Google results to find a previous instance of a tornado in Iceland, so they must be pretty rare
http://www.theremoteexperience.co.uk/Iceland/Ice12
The word for tornado in Icelandic appears to be "skýstrókur"
That looks pretty cool... looks like "sky stroker" to me!
Almost as good as the German word for tornado, "windhose" (trouser pants)!
Mistake in last post... German word for tornado, "windhose" = wind trousers
The tornado was followed by heavy rain and some hail.. which usually only happens here during the winter time.
The cold core setup was textbook, hig level low right over the spot. We have high hopes for global warming.. perhabs we get some more of these!
Best wihses from Iceland. - Elin.
Short news article on the Iceland tornado
http://www.icelandreview.com/icelandreview/daily_news/?cat_id=16567&ew_0_a_id=286108
07/30/2007 | 10:56
Tornado spotted in south Iceland
A tornado, which is a very rare sight in Iceland, was spotted on Skeidarársandur plane of sand in south Iceland of Friday. The tornado touched the ground for about five minutes and whirled up sand and dust.
Rain, hail and lighting followed the tornado, as picked up by the Icelandic Meteorological Office’s lightning sensors, Fréttabladid reports.
According to meteorologist Einar Sveinbjörnsson weather conditions that create tornados are very rare in Iceland and therefore tornados aren’t spotted often on the island, though they have been spotted on a few occasions before.
Tornados are most common in the USA’s midwestern states in spring and can cause considerable damage.
Hi Elin!
I hope you are doing well!
Thanks for sending those pictures along to Don, and allowing us to post them on the blog. They were much enjoyed.
Take care!
Reed
bardzo ciekawe zjawisko jak u nas w polsce.tylko ?e u nas by?o troszke wi?ksze i du?o szkud zrobi?o.pozdrawiam islandczyków i polaków papapapapa
hm... awesome picture last time we have a lot of tornads in poland ;/
whatever it was so small but when it could be so huge i am sure that you wont be so happy :D