Twin Tornadoes, Rare, But Has Happened Before

Before going into detail about the potential of how a twin tornado occurred yesterday in Pilger, Nebraska, know that this is something very rare, but has happened before. Additionally, there are many more storm chasers now than ever before and we can capture more information, in vast volumes, plus it spreads all over the internet, as well as media at rapid rates. Furthermore, meteorology is a growing science where we keep learning more over time. We know a lot, but there is much more research ongoing.

Anyway, below is one of the pictures of the twin tornadoes taken by storm chasing expert, Reed Timmer. 

This picture can say well more than a thousand words. To have two tornadoes that are extremely violet, right next to each other, is very unusual. Several theories do exist, but again, no straight up answer at this time.

For this type of situation to happen there could have been two different updrafts within one or two separate super cell thunderstorms. On the other hand, for two supercells or tow updrafts to be adjacent to one another is atypical. What tends to happen is one supercell takes over while the second collapses and transfers its energy to the other. In the picture above, it appears that the two updrafts, or supercells balance each other and create an environment where two strong tornadoes can exists side by side. Overtime, the two eventually linked together and created one larger tornado.

This goes into the next potential theory, a multi-vortex scenario. In most occurrences, there is only one vortex (rapidly rotating spin) per tornado. However, there are some single tornadoes that generate multiple vortexes, but tend to be very hard to see. Here, we might have and extreme case of multiple vortexes.

These are just a couple of theories, but more research will help the science of meteorology come closer to a real solution.

This has happened before, such as back in 1965 on Palm Sunday in Elkhart, Indiana. Paul Huffman snapped this picture of twin tornadoes during that outbreak below.

Another such occurrence happened in Hesston, Kansas in 1990. I was not able to find a picture of this event, but has been documented.

It's always saddening to see how destructive tornadoes can be, and what occurred in the Nation's Heartland last night was devastating. As more research continues on severe weather, forecasting steadily becomes more accurate.

In the meantime, if there is a Tornado Warning for your area, please make sure to respect Mother Nature's fury and take every precaution possible to protect yourself from the elements.

"Take a look up once in a while; you never know what you’ll miss."

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