Tornado in Ivanovo was one of the strongest in Europe
Satellite data has greatly clarify the representation, the largest tornado in the modern history of our country.
Alexander Chernokulsky from the Institute of atmospheric physics RAS Andrey Shikhov at the University of Pennsylvania (USA) using satellite images has clarified ideas about the tornado in Ivanovo, which occurred in 1984. Since this extreme event for Russia, extremely rare, no one was ready, and all observations were improvised and inaccurate. The new data allowed to understand that the scope of the phenomenon was underestimated — the tornado was one of the strongest in Europe and very powerful even by the standards of the United States. The analysis of such phenomena in Russia is very important because in the current climate they can be quite often “uninvited guests”. The corresponding article is published in Atmospheric Research.
The tornado is an extremely destructive phenomenon, occurring mainly in North America and Europe. Causes of their formation (presumably on the collision of atmospheric fronts), as well as why almost nowhere else in the world they occur, are not entirely clear.
At the same time to study their matter — energy of a single tornado with a diameter of the crater in kilometers is equal to the energy of the atomic bomb of 20 kilotons.
It is because of their huge energy in the Central United States is rare to see a stone or brick house — a strong tornado destroys any building, but the rubble stone buildings are much more dangerous than the frame.
If in the US there are places where the number of tornadoes may exceed the number of days in a year, for Russia, this phenomenon is much more rare, especially if we are talking about a strong tornado. However, there are exceptions — June 9, 1984, several tornadoes occurred in Central Russia. They were far from settlements, in addition to “Ivanovo”. The wind speed in the vortex of air reaches 100 meters per second, a tornado clipped the edge of Ivanovo and severely damaged over a thousand buildings, killing about a hundred people for a couple of minutes. No one was ready for the event, and its parameters are recorded later, according to eyewitnesses.
The creators of the work decided to clarify the characteristics of a tornado using satellite observations of the earth’s surface — fortunately, one of the Western satellites as time flew over the Ivanovo region, USSR. It turned out that that day was not formed by one or several, and from 8 to 13 separate tornadoes. Total length of trails is made up of 540 kilometers. While the biggest tornado was the width of the funnel at ground 1.74 km. The route of this the widest tornado was approximately 80-85 kilometers in length. That he touched the suburbs of Ivanovo.