Snow Tornadoes

[MNTornadoGuy]

I found a rather interesting winter weather event from 2016, on 12/15/2016, a lake-snow effect band was ravaging the southwest shore of Lake Ontario. What was unusual about this band was that it was a prolific snow-tornado producer. At least three landfalling snow-spouts struck the area around Oswego NY. The first one struck the Oswego Lighthouse where a weather station was located. The station recorded an 84 mph wind gust as the snow-spout passed over it. The second one struck two homes in Scriba NY, reportedly blowing the roof off of them. The third snow-spout struck the Brennan Beach RV park where it lofted multiple RVs. It does make me wonder if damaging snow-spouts are more common than commonly thought and are another risk lake-effect snow bands cause.

 

[eric11]

I remember having seen a low-topped supercell or strong thunderstorm with strong couplet in Long Island off the shore during a snowstorm in maybe 2013 or 2014 but I can't find a pic.
It seems that snownadoes in snow squalls are much common than in single cell storms.The following pics show a pure snownado, maybe the best documented in recent years in USA, occurred on 2/18/2019 in somewhere of NM.


NWS Albuquerque gave a insight of how the snownado formed.Two outflow boundary collided together in modest shear environment creating turbulent eddies, spining up in mountainous area.The snownado was lately labeled as a landspout instead of a tornado



Another less known event occurred a month prior to the NM event.
1/8/2019 in cortland OH, this tornado dropped down in a very shallow,snowy environment.Not quite clear it was snowing as soon as it dropped.But the down trees was quickly covered with snow and you can see there are also snow on the forest in front of the tornado.It was rated EF1.



Snownadoes are not native to USA, Britain also documented snownadoes once

 

[buckeye05]

I thought this thread would be about lake induced steam devils or something, but this phenomenon is clearly connected to both the cloud base and ground, and seems to be a rare but legitimate form of tornado. I didn't know this kind of thing was even possible tbh.

Here's one that occurred near Cedar Creek, TX this year.


Here's another one in upstate NY from 2016. Again, clearly a legitimate tornado of sorts.

 

[MNTornadoGuy]

I thought this thread would be about lake induced steam devils or something, but this phenomenon is clearly connected to both the cloud base and ground, and seems to be a rare but legitimate form of tornado. I didn't know this kind of thing was even possible tbh.

Here's one that occurred near Cedar Creek, TX this year.
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Here's another one in upstate NY from 2016. Again, clearly a legitimate tornado of sorts.
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I imagine the warm lake generates convective updrafts that stretch circulations into the cumulus cloud above similar to landspouts/fair-weather waterspouts.

 

[buckeye05]

I'd say I'm now aware of six separate types of tornadoes. I wonder how many of these are actually recognized though?

-Supercell tornado
-Landspout tornado
-Spinup/QLCS tornado
-Cold Air tornado
-Pyrotornado/Fire Tornado
-Winter Tornado/Snowspout

 

[MNTornadoGuy]

I'd say I'm now aware of six separate types of tornadoes. I wonder how many of these are actually recognized though?

-Supercell tornado
-Landspout tornado
-Spinup/QLCS tornado
-Cold Air tornado
-Pyrotornado/Fire Tornado
-Winter Tornado/Snowspout

Pyrotornadoes and snowspouts tend to be listed as subcategories of either mesocyclonic or non-mesocyclonic tornadoes as they form in both ways. Also snowspouts are actually common in Japan during the winter months.

 

[WesL]

I'd say I'm now aware of six separate types of tornadoes. I wonder how many of these are actually recognized though?

-Supercell tornado
-Landspout tornado
-Spinup/QLCS tornado
-Cold Air tornado
-Pyrotornado/Fire Tornado
-Winter Tornado/Snowspout

Geez.. who knew!

 

[Juliett Bravo Kilo]

Pyrotornadoes and snowspouts tend to be listed as subcategories of either mesocyclonic or non-mesocyclonic tornadoes as they form in both ways. Also snowspouts are actually common in Japan during the winter months.

So is a snowspout simply a tornado spawned in winter or is it a separate type of whirlwind spawned by thundersnows or the like? A bit confused here to be honest.

 

[MNTornadoGuy]

So is a snowspout simply a tornado spawned in winter or is it a separate type of whirlwind spawned by thundersnows or the like? A bit confused here to be honest.

Snowspouts are simply tornadoes spawned by convective snow or thunder-snow.