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New Zealand formed along the edges of the Pacific and Australian tectonic plates. The contrast in geology between the North and South Islands is due to the different interaction between these two plates along the length of the country.  In the North Island, there was a predominace of subduction, where one plate slides beneath the other.  The South Island was formed mostly by the edges of the plates forcing each other upwards, creating the Southern Alps.

The central North Island is the most active area. NZ's largest lake,Taupo, was created about 26,500 years ago by the Oranui eruption which ejected about 1200 cubic kilometres of pumice and ash to form the caldera which filled to form the lake.  Another eruption around 200AD produced one of the most powerful pyroclastic flows ever recorded.  this flowed over Mt Tongariro and the Kaimanawa mountains, climbing 1,500 metres in minutes.  I believe that this flow reached as far as Auckland, forming Achilles Point, the western headland of the Tamaki Estuary.  This eruption probably made Krakatoa look like a firecracker in comparison!

I believe the largest island in the Hawaian group is actually a mountain formed from an underwater volcano and, if measure from it's base on  the seabed, is taller than Mt Everest.

Murray  I am so proud of this kiwi you are so intelligent, you do us proud

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Yes Murray,  Everest is the tallest mountain on a continent, The tallest mountain in the world is actually Mauna Kea, (Hawaii) which is about 31K, I don't recall if all the Hawaiian Islands are volcanos or not,  I'll need to Google that later,  That'd make sense however.


(I'd hope the majority aren't active)  :shock:

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Kappy

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"Be who you are and say what you feel... Because those that matter... Don't mind...And those that mind... Don't matter."

Any of you recall a few years back talk regarding an area off've the continent of Africa slipping into the Ocean ?   Speculation was this would cause an enormous Tsunami ?     (Was it on the continent itself, or an island off've the coast,  I don't recall)


Anyway,  I know nothing about plate motion, so I decided to take a little "Rocks for Jocks" Geography 101 refresher course.  Is this what is referred to as continental drift ?  or is the plate shifting more extreme ?   Is this the cause of volcanic activity, shifting plates causing friction ?


http://www.sciencemaster.com/jump/earth ... motion.php




This I never knew !    

Would this mean Iceland is prone to Seismic activity ?   or are Earthquakes caused by land pushing on land as opposed to separating ?

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Bill,   Might this be an explanation for many UFO Sightings ?   (Besides light refraction and reflection that is).   Also dangers of electrocution during storms when inside a building ?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ball_lightning

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Duplicate post removed

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I've seen ball lightning once. It was a very odd thing, and very unexpected. Of course at the time I didn't have a clue what it was. It was purplish plasma looking colored and kind of sparking / sparkling electrically as it flew. The one I saw was flying horizontally over a house I was near, tens of feet above it. I estimate it was about 4 feet in diameter and it made a hizzing sound as it slowly, gracefully floated generally in my direction horizontally. It lasted 20 or 30 seconds while I watched and I believe just dissipated.  Hmm...I wonder if there was any missing time? Never really thought of that. I remember walking in and telling people in the house I saw it, but it does seem now as if that was a bit later. I really don't know.

But seriously, it was just an odd, rare phenomenon. I was probably extremely lucky to see it.

As for rope tornadoes - yeah, they probably stay generally tens to hundreds of yards wide. Nothing too big.

Interestingly, yesterday was the 60th anniversary of the infamous Woodward, Ok tornado that at one point was 1.8 miles wide and F5!
http://www.srh.noaa.gov/oun/wxevents/19470409/

Looks like this coming Friday and possibly Saturday could be a big severe weather outbreak for the US including possibly tornadoes. Thursday also looks like a chase day for me.

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Does this look accurate to you Bill ?


TORNADO RECORDS
·  Highest Recorded Wind: 318 mph, Bridge Creek/Moore, OK, May 3, 1999. **
·  Widest Observed Path: 2.5 miles, Hallam, NE, May 22nd, 2004.+
·  Longest Observed Path: 219 miles, Tri State Tornado, March 18, 1925.



The ** refers to windspeeds above ground level,  ground level speed unknown


 I wonder how one would determine whether or not a few of the F-5's weren't actually the unheard of F-6 ?     It doesn't seem clearly discernible at this level of violent storm.



I found this interesting in some horrific way too

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Highest recorded wind - they have backed off of that a bit. They say there is leeway for error so now they provide a range and claim it is closer to 309 or so. Plus that was taken with the DOW above ground and so it would be a bit slower at ground level. I believe technically the original 318 would have almost qualified as winds in the range of F6; however difference is the f-scale is damage based only and not based on what the winds really were. It was developed based on an estimate of what damage would be done in those types of winds originally derived from 2 separate wind scales...one being related to testing nukes. The scientific community won't allow ratings of F6 - they believe they don't really exist, and they also believe it is impossible to determine F6 damage because F5 messes things up so bad you couldn't read anything more into it. So technically winds could be faster but the highest they will go is F5. Also they have revamped the F-scale recently and downgraded wind ranges in the new EF scale so F6 will probably never happen.

Hallam - I believe that width is true, but most believe that it wasn't the large tornado that created all that damage width. It could have been created by other straight line winds around the tornado, other satellite tornadoes, or part of the large wallcloud / meso dragging the ground - which would have still been tornado like. On the other hand a few believe it could have been one big tornado. I coined the phrase in the community of "super tornado", operating by somewhat different dynamics and scale compared to a regular tornado.

Tri State length sounds about right, but some believe it could have been more than one tornado of the same parent cloud rather than one continuous tornado. I forget what the current thinking is.

I haven't heard that about the super-hurricane. That's incredible. I suppose SST's of 120 are unlikely though.

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I believe the thoughts on the tristate tornado still vary, while the 219 mile path covered by one tornado is quite improbable, ground study seems to indicate the likelihood of at least one tornado lingering that long in this particular event. Some believe there were more than one that covered that path (I believe up to six depending on source)  Bulk of damage was the larger tornado which spawned others, but traveled a considerable distance as the sole menace.  Still inconclusive (at least I think it's inconclusive from what I've viewed)



I thought I read that Doppler tracked windspeeds that high a few hundred feet above the ground (with a margin of 10 mph either way) In the case of the 319 mph (give or take) twister


Is this a Dust Devil,   Gustnado, or F-0 tornado ?   What I don't understand is that this appears to have formed from the ground up, rather than drop from the cloud..  Looks like a large dust devil ??????   or a gustnado ???
http://www.hallpass.com/media/tornado.html

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Those of you living in the Pacific NW areas.   Any knowledge of "Rogue Waves" ?  Something we don't have here in the east.   Something I know nothing about..


Anyway, this is a nice ending to a horrific wave episode..
http://www.hallpass.com/media/deadlywaves.html


This of course COULD be a horrific wave episode but the surfer is too crazy to realize this ..    Amazing wind generated breaker (likely off've Hawaii), we don't see waves such as this in the Long Island sound... Anyway, the oceans have an amazing power to them too,   While a Tsunami or tidal-wave isn't a HIGH wave such as this, these wind generated breakers certainly can be ominous too...   Note this guys balance....amazing...

http://www.dailylink.ru/embed.php?stuff ... imate-Wave


Is what we hear in the background wind from an oncoming storm that is creating such a monstrosity of a wave ?   or is this the wave itself we hear creating the wind sound ?    This type of wave is a storm-wave, right ??   Dunno...  (sky in the background appears to be a fast moving storm approaching shore)

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You MUST see this BASE jumper going off've a cliff...   Now which cliff or mountain range this is is a mystery, but, based on the amount of time he is free-falling that's got to be well over a mile free-fall, and it appears that it's not a sheer dropoff point, meaning he's hurling himself over lower ravines and foot ledges so this appears to be a self-imposed near death experience..  I wonder if that's Baffin Island where I think there's supposedly the greatest vertical drop (about 4K).. Either that or the Matterhorn  :shock:    Dunno,  this is WILD


http://www.livevideo.com/video/777A14F9 ... iving.aspx

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Okay, I went and clicked on this one and watched the video..

http://www.hallpass.com/media/deadlywaves.html

Interesting video. The very LAST line the guy says is ".... but if not for the efforts of the courageous pilot, this day would have ended in tragedy". Are they talking about the rescue boat? Cause those guys didn't do anything but fall in the water themselves (twice) and get rescued by a helicopter:) The man and little girl who were first in trouble got out of there by sheer luck..... he drifted in to calmer waters..... that was an act of god, not of the would-be rescuer.    Only then did the coast guard hook on and tow them to shore. ( a different coast guard boat, matter of fact) Gosh, I wish they'd reserve glory for where it's actually due.

Okay, I'm done with my lowballing of the video and it's narrator now:)

Cool links though Steven.  :wave:

.

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♥ Laugh your heart out, dance in the rain. Cherish the memories, ignore the pain. Love and learn, forget and forgive. Because you only have one life to live. ♥

Tristate: Yeah some still think it could be one tornado others a few.

Moore F5 tornado 318mph - they did, but lately Dr. Josh Wurman has been backing off that original figure saying it was subject to error and is measure 50 meters or so above ground level as well.

The video is a strong dust devil under sunny, blue skies. It could have been a gustnado if there were a severe storm nearby and it was created from the shear turbulence of the storm.  Dust devil is a fair weather vortex. Gustnado is not a true tornadoe either. It is not in contact with or caused directly by deep convection in the storm, but rather by shear interfaces typically along and near the gust front of a severe storm.  True tornadoes can be either landspout / waterspout, or supercellular based. Landspout / waterspout is derived from the storm ingesting something called horizontal vorticity as it moves  into an area causing a tornado from a storm that is not a supercell. A supercell tornado is the type chasers typically chase and can be seen / diagnosed to some degree by radar by viewing the parent rotating mesocyclone in the storm cloud above where a tornado would be. A supercell is defined as a storm cloud that has a rotating mesocyclone. The tornado forms as part of this large scale area of rotation as part of the inflow to the storm. I should note that waterspouts can also be supercell or non-supercell based.

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Charmin,

     I suppose my thoughts on this are that sometimes "efforts" even when appearing somewhat useless still qualifies them all as heros, and of course an individual that must put themselves in potentially life-threatening situations regularly to rescue others (and do this for a living as well, and has extensive training to do-so, can better answer this or people such as Kelly, other fire fighters, the coastguard, emergency rescue squads, police) any person entering a high-risk, life-threatening situation to try to save others lives is a hero.  I agree their flawed attempts appeared to be quite sloppy, but you can be sure they still had extensive rescue training, (at least one would assume).. Since they came close to death, IMHO they are all heros.
If I decided to take a catamaran out in stormy seas that would make me an idiot, but the person who tries to rescue me has to put their lives at risk so they fall into a different category, even when they fail.  Just my thoughts..  

Quite honestly since I've never been on anything more than a ferry, I haven't a clue what rough seas are like to work with,  First thing I thought was "It didn't look as bad as you see on Hollywood", I really did think that, and this is because I know NOTHING about such situations, so I'm learning about them I suppose, I just don't know how powerful windblown breakers can be.   I have no understanding of the ocean and it's conditions...  This is part of the reason I formed this thread,  I want to learn more about natural phenom,  rogue-waves, tidal waves, and just how strong the elements can be..  Sort've an awed-fascination,  Especially in an international thread, (IE...I think you folks have rogue-waves off the coast of Oregon, and even Washington and those can be deadly but this is something we east-coasters know nothing of....  or, how Just sitting on a pier by the water and a monstrous wave can just appear and wipe a person out ?   That's different to me,  we don't have any of that here.)  I suppose something else I'm curious about is Crop circles,   something else I know nothing about...  Nature is fascinating...  not only that, but from this thread we can get a decent idea of places one might not wish to invest real-estate money in. There's someplace in Nebraska that was supposedly struck years ago by a monstrous meteorite and there's a 2 mile crater ?  Even the ancient geometricians that designed the pillars of the Parthenon thousands of years ago that knew how to counter the rail-roading illusion in order for adjacent pillars to appear parallel from the air (prior to the existence of planes), mechanics used to build Pyramids, etc (albeit very low tech, they still had their way of completing such amazing feats)...  This stuff is all fascinating to me.  


Bill,   The formation of the Minnesota twister really seemed very similar in certain ways to the dustdevil we saw on the field, even a gustnado,  however BIG difference was the atmospheric conditions and Cumulous ceiling....  You were able to see the funnel formation starting to drop from the storm-cloud after about a minute into the movie only, however initially (very minor) wind activity on the ground appeared to be nothing more than gale winds tops, very little debris field, but as the vortex continued to drop, the size, and velocity greatly picked up...  I guess so much also depends on the terrain,   in a field without too much loose debris it's difficult to visually notice this... Here's the Minnesota tornado formation I am speaking of,  you will see how initially the wind really didn't appear to be much more than what we saw form in the asian soccer field, however the sky condition in Minnesota of course are quite different.

Initially (assuming one wasn't familiar with the Cumulous ceiling conditions) this appears (at least the first 45 seconds to be nothing more than a dustdevil, or gustnado),  the clear vortex isn't visible until around a minute into the video...
http://www.wewin.com/Minnesota-Tornado.aspx


This is actually the first time I've ever seen the life of a Tornado Bill,  It appears to start off naturally an F-0,   I'm wondering if it ever even attains F-2 status, given such conditions how would one tell ?

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Bill,  would the weight of water enable a "waterspout" to attain F-5 velocity ? or are they short-lived once they start sucking on heavy liquid.


Another question,  Is the wind of a tornado just outwards, or does it also pull up towards the cloud ?  I'm confused between what was initially thought of as vacuum conditions in the center, and wind directions of a tornado,  Is there a force pulling upwards ?   or does anything exposed to such a wind only experience centripetal type forces and get thrown outwards.


Also,  one other question because this MIGHT in fact be a similar phenom.

20 years ago I was too close to a Helipad,  I got blown over by the prop cranking at around the time the helicopter lifted off the ground.   How similar was this phenom to a person either being exposed to a microburst, or an actual tornadic wind ?

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Friend of yours Bill ??  

http://www.autoweek.com/apps/pbcs.dll/a ... 4232944929


Fascinating concept,   I wonder how an A-1 Abrams would fare in an F-5

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Are Hurricane spawned Tornadoes horizontal vorticity ?   Due to the pressure front ?  or are they vertical vorticity due to the storm-cell activity ?   Or can they be either/or ?

I guess I'm somewhat confused by this stuff,   naturally the warm air vs cooler air conditions that form Tornado conditions would create atmospheric conditions that would likely generate spawning activity of similar patterns, but wouldn't that also create a bernouli effect that would pull inwards closer to ground level ?

This is where my deficit in Science messes me up.

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I know. I'm not knocking what they DO by any means, nor am I calling them cowards. Just- in this instance- the narrator was fluffing it up, where it was NOT a good example of "tragedy would have struck without the hero"...... I giggled when I heard that last line of the video. That's all:)

There are indeed some awesome breakers off the Oregon Coast. I have NEVER been in a watercraft in coastal waters though. What .... do I look stupid?  :D It's hella windy every time you go there, especially Lincoln City. It can be 90 degrees and blasted hot here, and if we drive to the coast for the day (hour and a half or so) we take atleast a windbreaker jacket. It is ALWAYS windy there, and the waves are choppy, if not downright tsunamis:)
I swim in lakes and rivers, NOT at the coast. The only thing at all that lures me there is the sand dunes.... we ride ATVs and sandrails. And the Oregon Coast has some awesome dunes with huge bowls and lots of trails. But I would know next to nothing (less than you, since you're studying it) about such things like you're talking about. I have no desire to be on watercraft on the pacific coast.

.

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♥ Laugh your heart out, dance in the rain. Cherish the memories, ignore the pain. Love and learn, forget and forgive. Because you only have one life to live. ♥