Is it a Tornado, Landspout, Gustnado or Burrito?

Happy Friday Patrons,

Last night's chat was a lot of fun. One particularly extra fun topic was the KS lightning storm / landspout event on June 18th. Multiple dust vortexes spun up with characteristics of both landspouts and gustnadoes. Perhaps hybrids. So what exactly were they and how many do we tally? Some chasers claim to have seen 5 tornadoes and perhaps they did. I am currently only logging 1.

Why does it matter? It doesn't to some, it does to others including me. As humans, we are wired to believe whatever we want to believe or need to believe. To combat these innate biases, philosophers developed critical thinking exercises and the scientific method. We've invested an ocean of time and money into capturing tornadoes. Successful days shower us with praise on social media and build our brands. Failures summon cricket chirps while our competition sprints ahead to the roar of the mob. There is a lot of pressure for us to produce results... One way or another.

REGARDING CONCLUSIONS, THE MOST FORGIVING ERRORS in my opinion is ignorance. We're all ignorant. It should be no big deal discovering when we are ignorant, rather celebrated, however we were born with an id and an ego.

Worst than ignorance (IMO) is purposely deceiving the public to better serve your progress. It's almost forgiving (but not) when someone blatantly lies to better promote their business. Remember, we're talking about tallying tornadoes, not climate change.

But the worst of all of them (to me personally) is when we lie to ourselves and stubbornly refuse to accept uncomfortable data. Perhaps we can just chalk that up as weakness... Another trait we all possess.

SO, LET'S BEGIN THE EXERCISE

If you look closely (above) you'll see a funnel cloud with an itty bitty teensy-weensy dust spin up below it. Hardly violent. After the funnel dissipated multiple little gustnadoes spun up here and there along the OFB (Outflow boundary). So perhaps, this was just a gustnado colocated under a funnel? Even if it was the same vortex, was it violent?

IS "THE TINY FUNNEL" A TORNADO OR NOT?

NEXT CASE...

Above is the same thingie as in the cover shot. We clearly had strong rotation / a mesocyclone above the dust vortex. I'm currently tallying this as my only tornado, HOWEVER it may not be. In the time-lapsed footage it appears there may be sinking air (rain/virga) above the vortex and the vortex might be the result of convergence around that sinking air. This is a very interesting case because it may somewhat validate Dr. Jana Houser's "bottom up" theory.

IS THE ABOVE "MESOCYCLONE & VORTEX" A TORNADO?

NEXT CASE...

Here we have a nice landspouty looking thingie clearly riding the OFB out in front of the storm.

IS THIS "LANDSPOUTY THINGIE" A TORNADO?

Next case...

Prior to this shot, this vortex was a pretty good dust tube. Again, clearly riding the OFB. Obviously this "SILONADO" is a gustnado right?

FINAL CASE...

My view was impaired by a thick wall of rain but perhaps someone directly in the notch was able to confirm a visible touchdown. Was this "RAIN WRAPPED CIRCULATION" A Tornado?

I hope this guy below chimes in as he was all over these storms... and the flies. Currens, If you're listening, we need you too.

Have fun truth seeking chasers.