Tornadoes - Severe Convective Storms and Tornadoes: Observations and Dynamics - page 310

Figure 6.5. Tornado damage in Moore, OK from a large tornado on May 3, 1999. (Top panel)
A pickup truck and sheet metal wrapped against a tree. (Bottom panel) The foundation of a
house swept nearly clean (photographs by the author).
Most tornadoes in supercells rotate cyclonically, while anticyclonic tornadoes
are also observed but much more rarely, alone, but more often in tandem with
nearby cyclonic tornadoes or with cyclonic circulations at the surface that are the
remnants of cyclonic tornadoes ( Figure 6.8 ). When counter-rotating tornado pairs
occur, the anticyclonic tornadoes are located at the opposite end (usually the
equatorward side) of the rear-flank gust front ( Figure 6.9 ).
Some tornadoes contain even smaller-scale vortices within them that rotate
about the main axis of the tornado ( Figure 6.10 ). These subtornado-scale vortices
have been referred to as ''suction vortices'' (named so by Ted Fujita) or ''satellite
vortices'' or ''secondary vortices''. Tornadoes that have subtornado-scale vortices
are frequently called ''multiple-vortex'' tornadoes. It has been postulated that
these secondary vortices are responsible for extreme damage and local variability
of damage. Ted Fujita first showed that over open fields they can produce