Mesocyclone facts for kids
A mesocyclone is a vortex of air, about 2 to 10 km in diameter (the mesoscale of meteorology), inside a convective storm. That is, it is air that rises and rotates around a vertical axis, usually in the same direction as low pressure systems in a given hemisphere. They are most often cyclonic, that is, related with a localized low pressure area inside a severe thunderstorm. Such storms can create strong surface winds and a lot of hail. Mesocyclones often happen together with updrafts in supercells, where tornadoes may form.
Mesocyclones are normally relatively very small in size; they lie between the synoptic scale (hundreds of kilometers) and small scale (hundreds of meters).
| Cyclones and Tropical cyclones of the World |
|---|
| Cyclone - Tropical - Extratropical - Subtropical - Mesocyclone - Polar cyclone - Polar low |
Images for kids
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Supercell diagram with the mesocyclone rotation in red.
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A tornado developing under a wall cloud within a mesocyclone near Falcon, Colorado
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Mesocyclones are sometimes visually identifiable by a rotating wall cloud like the one in this thunderstorm over Texas.
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Mesocyclone detection algorithm output on tornadic cells in Northern Michigan on July 3, 1999.
See also
In Spanish: Mesociclón para niños
