Originally posted by kbaumenI think these are the national geographic pictures from the current chaiten eruption.
What's that? A volcano eruption with a thunder storm or a screenshot from Independence Day? It really looks amazing.
looking at the pictures, and realizing what a massive and fast hot upward air stream there must be, surpassing by far what can happen inside a 'normal' thunderstorm 'anvil' cloud, I started wondering...
...why doesn't the hot, rising air column rotate, as a ridiculously violent and powerful tornado?
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Originally posted by PalynkaImpressive! I googled a bit and found some other nice volcano-lightning pictures:
Pretty amazing pictures.
http://www.universetoday.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/05/volcanoupi_800x531.jpg
http://www.universetoday.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/05/volcanoupi1_800x514.jpg
http://hakone.eri.u-tokyo.ac.jp/unzen/sakura/sakura.html
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/sciencenow/3214/02-vari-07.html
http://www.arenal.net/
An active volcano and nordlys are also a nice combination:
http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap060129.html
Originally posted by wormwoodWithout Googling it, I can tell you that tornadoes are formed when a mass of cool air gets trapped above a layer of warm air, so what you're seeing with a tornado is the cold air trying to spiral down under the warm air where it belongs.
...why doesn't the hot, rising air column rotate, as a ridiculously violent and powerful tornado?
So in short, tornadoes aren't formed by warm air rising, but cooler air descending.
At best, you'd get a hurricane, but hurricanes don't form over land.