The anatomy of a tornadic storm – KOCO Oklahoma City

OKLAHOMA CITY

With storm season right around the corner, it will be common to hear KOCO meteorologists and storm chasers use severe storm terms. Commonly used terms may be "wall cloud" or "mesocyclone.: Here is a breakdown of what these terms mean.

Supercell: An often dangerous thunderstorms that consists primarily of a single, rotating updraft, which persists for much longer than 1020 minutes.

Mesocylone: A cyclonically rotating vortex, around 1-6 miles in diameter, in a thunderstorm

Wall cloud: A local, often abrupt lowering from a cumulonimbus cloud base into a low-hanging accessory cloud. A wall cloud marks the lower portion of a very strong updraft, usually associated with a supercell or severe multicell storm. It typically develops near the precipitation region of the cumulonimbus. Wall clouds that exhibit significant rotation and vertical motions often precede tornado formation by a few minutes to an hour.

Updraft: The part of the supercell storm that has rising vertical motion moving towards the top of the storm. The downdraft is the part of the storm that falls vertically, which typically contains rain, hail and sometimes damaging winds.

Click the image above to see the diagram of a supercell storm and clickhere for a complete weather glossary.

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The anatomy of a tornadic storm - KOCO Oklahoma City