Hasta La Motion!

Using supercomputers, a team lead by UW-Madison CIMSS researcher Leigh Orf, successfully recreated a monstrous supercell that produced several tornadoes in 2011, one of which registered as an EF-5 and touched down near El Reno, Oklahoma. 

Learn more about the simulation: http://avl.ncsa.illinois.edu/documentary-television-film/making-of-super-tornado

Simulation details:
-Sequence one: The cloud field is examined from above, then from the south, during the phase of the storm where the tornado is strongest

-Sequence two: The full model domain is shown, looking from the south. The full cloud field is shown, and then zoomed twice to show highlight the difference between the size of the storm and the size of the tornado that it spawned.

-Sequence three: The cloud and rain fields are animated in time during the tornado’s formation, and several minutes into the tornado’s life cycle. The dark grey field is rain, and the lighter grey is cloud.

-Sequences four and five: Parcels are released near the ground during the tornado’s maintenance phase where it is producing EF5-strength winds at ground level. Parcels are colored by source region.

-Sequence six: Vorticity magnitude is shown as a volume rendered field during the tornado’s maintenance phase. Parcels are also released along the storm’s cold pool / environment boundary near the ground, revealing the flow of the Streamwise Vorticity Current, a new feature identified in this research.

-Sequence seven: The cloud and rain field of a supercell that produces a multiple vortex EF5 tornado is animated. This sequence is from the highest resolution simulation run to date (20 meter grid spacing).

Music courtesy of: Jingle Punks track title “Stale Mate”