ARE THESE TORNADOES?

[fuerteviento]

Hi there.

I got this video of some possible tornadoes hitting the centre of the island of Fuerteventura in the Canary Islands.

Very few tornadoes hit the Canaries each year so obviously we don´t have much experience of them. In the forum where I showed this footage, some people don´t believe that it´s a real tornado, but I´m sure that it is.

Could any one tell me what they think about it?

Video:http://es.youtube.com/watch?v=OtCxHBNEQBg

Muchas gracias,

Pedro

[Paul]

Hi Pedro, I'm just going to move this into the extreme weather forum

I'm no storm chaser btw, but they look like tornados to me... I'm sure you'll get some further more expert opinions though.

Paul

[Nick F]

Does look like a tornado there judging by the colour of the earth debris being sucked into the vortex, may well started off life as a waterspout, though I don't know a great deal about the climate around the shores of the Canaries - so could well as likely have started off overland as strong updrafts over the hot bare earth were stretched into a tornado into a rotating mesocyclone in the storm.

[rixxxgolf]

Hmmm, great pictures, not 100% on them being Tornadoes, maybe severe dust devils.

Oh to hell with it, TORNADOES LOL

[Stratos Ferric]

Hmmm, great pictures, not 100% on them being Tornadoes, maybe severe dust devils.

Oh to hell with it, TORNADOES LOL

My instinct is the same; dust devils: not easy to tell without clear shots of the clouds above though.

[BrickFielder]

At first glance I thought dust devil, but it looks too cloudy. Then I thought tornado but despite the low cloud the cloud structure or what we can see of it does not look like typical tornado structure. I think it most likely a combination of both with it starting as a dust devil which has been sucked into the indraft of a storm to give a weak tornado.

[AtlanticFlamethrower]

have we all noticed the swirling vortex to the right of the Is it a tornado or Dust Devil?

Ed: the video focusses more on the vortex on the right of the first picture.

Edited July 21, 2007 by AtlanticFlamethrower

[Thundersquall]

Pedro, are the 'blips' on the video caused by lightning strikes?

Looks like tornadoes to me as well.

[Lincs Observation]

Good evening all

i just saw this thread and thought id answer the question on the climate on Fuerteventura, having been there a few times i can say that the island is a very dry and hot island but the thing that stands out is that its a very windy place hot winds blow across the island, and with it been the closest island to the african coast its like you are been sandblasted in a hot oven. This makes this island a favorite for surfers due to the waves.

Fuerteventura is a very volcanic island which is why i like to go there with a mix of redish volcanic soil and fine sand, it would not suprise me that the island would get sudden sheer providing the right conditions for a tornado, however i would guess that due to the islands very dry climate that this event is rare.

Dust devils i would suspect may not be as rare with the wind strength that is a daily thing on Fuerteventura, its just a case i suspect of two events combining to give us this spectacular but rare weather event.

LO

[Geordiesnow]

It does look like a dust devil to me. Judging by the ground where it was filmed i would imagine it would be the same where the possble dust devil is. It does not look like a tornado to me as it does not move much.