What a Tornado Looks Like on Radar

A breakdown of a cyclic tornadic supercell on 3/13/21.

For weather enthusiasts just getting into the habit of watching severe weather events on radar, discerning a tornadic vs. a non-tornadic circulation on radar can be quite tricky at first.

To help you along, we'll show a few examples from a cyclic tornado producing supercell in the Texas Panhandle from the March 13, 2021 tornado event. This particular storm was responsible for producing three large tornadoes in rapid succession.

We'll talk a bit about the cycles the storm went through and also do a bit of compare and contrast with another non-tornado producing storm. Finally, we'll talk a bit about the dangers of cyclic tornadic storms to storm chasers and why rapidly developing situations like these are especially dangerous.