Dave's Corner - September 2025

Hi Everyone!

Welcome back to another edition of Dave's Corner. Today's topic is going to try to differentiate between dangerous weather and other weather conditions that are just fascinating to watch. One of the most misunderstood weather phenomena is the tornado look-a-like, the Cold Air Funnel. Even though it looks dangerous, most of the time it's not.

We have to look at the birthplace of the funnels in question. With a harmless Cold Air Funnel, conditions in the atmosphere usually aren't quite right to produce anything more than just that, a funnel cloud. Rarely do these funnels touch ground, and if they do, they're very short lived. Technically speaking, at the point it does touch down, it's officially a tornado, but that in itself doesn't make it dangerous.

They get their name from the unusually cold air aloft, and the relatively warm air close to the surface. A spin begins as the cold air sinks into the warmer air and only maintains itself if the temperature contrast is sufficient. Most of the time that duration is a matter of a few minutes, which isn't enough for the actual funnel to reach the ground. Wind speeds around this funnel rarely exceed 40 miles per hour. This might be enough to blow some lawn furniture around or even take down a few small trees and branches. Again, fascinating to watch but little to actually worry about, but should still be avoided, if possible, to stay safe.

The birthplace of the big brother to the Cold Air Funnel, is the severe weather tornado. These are caused by a unique combination of ingredients found most often in the Heartland of our country. Warm and humid air from the Gulf of Mexico, cool and dry air from Canada and warm, dry air from the Desert Southwest. When these distinctly separate weather masses come together, they usually produce an outbreak of severe weather. Severe thunderstorms can produce many types of damaging weather conditions, from large hail and strong winds (over 60 miles per hour), to a few tornadoes. This type of tornado can produce extreme damage and loss of life. Wind speeds can exceed 200 miles per hour and very rarely top 300 miles per hour. If a storm like that is approaching, the safest place is underground in a basement or storm shelter.