Suction Vortices Exposed! Incredible Inside Look At Tornado

Hat tip to Capital Weather Gang for highlighting this video of a tornado near Woonsocket, South Dakota this week.  

Suction vortices are visible in this tornado a few years
ago in a photo taken by Roger Edwards.  

In it, you can see many suction vortices dancing around the rotation of the tornado.

Suction vortices, little mini tornadoes within one main tornado circulation, are fairly common.

But you usually don't seem them that often in tornado videos, because the suction vortices are largely hidden in the dirt and debris and cloudiness of the main tornado.

This twister, however, showed how the suction vortices twirl around inside a tornado like a bunch of feverish ballet dancers.

Suction vortices are often why you see the capricious nature of tornado damage. One house is destroyed, while the home right next door has only minor damage.

The destroyed house was probably hit by a suction vortice. The spin of the mini-tornado, combined with the overall wind of the main twister, combine to as much as double the wind speed. Meanwhile, the house with minor damage probably got strong winds from the main tornado, but no suction vortices hit it.

Here's the video. Pretty fascinating: