My wife (downstate taking care of her elderly parents and the family farm near Waco) called me last night and said they had tornados nearby. I fired up Weather Tap and watched (via their excellent HD radar) storm after storm dropping "hook echoes" the unmistakeable radar-signature of a tornadic storm.
Although hook echoes are common, the following radar frame capture is not. It shows the "hole in the donut" or the eye of a tornado (with all of the usual radar reflecting water vapor and debris literally spun out) creating an almost perfect vacuum!
In that perfect hole there is basically nothing for the radar to bounce off of, hence the hole.
Usually you don't see this unless the tornado is very close to the radar (like a Doppler on Wheels image) or the tornado is very big and unusually organized in the center.
Cool indeed!
-Steve
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