I’m from Florida and have seen many hurricanes throughout my life, but one thing I could never fully understood are the tornado threats from them. Idalia is still passing through my area and we are all under a tornado watch till this evening. Oddly enough, I cannot ever remember a significant tornado occurring due to a hurricane, but that might just be me not paying attention.
From what I do understand, the common tornadoes we see in the US in the south and Midwest usually come from the classic formula, with warm and cold air meeting to make thunderstorm super cells, and those cells eventually forming the rotation vortex that we see touch down as a tornado. A hurricane is a tropical low pressure system that from what I understand, is not formulated the same as these super cell thunderstorms that produce tornadoes in the Midwest.
So how exactly can tornadoes come from hurricanes? Is it a reaction from being over land and meeting cold air and thus causing the thunderstorms in the hurricane to react similarly?
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When hurricanes make landfall, the air near the ground slows down while the air up top keeps its speed. This is called a “wind shear” that can lead to a column of air rotating and producing small tornados.
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