Increased pressure drop in core?

[Robert Gillespie]

I am very luckey to get out in the field as much as I do, so I want to make that time as productive as possible. Over the past couple of years I've heard mumblings from the scientific community about the barometric pressure in the core being on a much stepper cure that thought over the past decade or so. eg; more damage to structures due to a rapid decrease in pressure? When I'm out I am fortunate enough to have some exterior monitoring equuipment on my truck. But as we all know when things happen, they happen quick and watching monitor displays are short in nature at best. I have made the decesion this year to pay more attention to pressure readings. Any comments about this would be greatly appreciated.

[Aaron Kennedy]

Robert,

If you live to tell the tale about what the pressure drop in the middle of the tornado is... by all means tell us what the readings are :)

[Jason Foster]

Did you mean the rain core?

Tim Samaras's probe from back in 2003 or 2004 did record a very steep pressure drop when his "turtle" probe had a successful deployment.

http://www.spc.noaa.gov/faq/tornado/samaras.gif

Note: You can even see the possible presence of another pressure drop that may have been another vortex in a multi-vortex tornado. Tim himself may explain that more, I'm not really into the research/meteorology side of chasing.

[Robert Gillespie]

Thanks Jason, and yes I did mean "rain core". And Aaron ditto.

[Skip Talbot]

Isn't the precip core an area of higher pressure?

[Scott A. Kampas]

The is also the observed pressure deficit from a tornado on 21 April 2007 at Tulia, Texas that struck Eric Nguyen (instrument guru) and Amos Magliocco. A 194 hPa drop was recorded, although it's not quite as robust, due to, among other reasons, the movement and deceleration of the vehicle, it's still very interesting findings.


http://www.ejssm.org/ojs/index.php/ejssm/article/viewFile/39/42/849 (http://www.ejssm.org/ojs/index.php/ejssm/issue/view/14)

The pressure difference still isn't enough and the winds will vent the building quite effectively anyway.

[Jeff Duda]

Wow, the time scale on that 194-mb drop is tiny compared to the one obtained from Tim's data.