Tornadoes and downbursts in the context of generalized planetary scales.

Abstract

In order to cover a wide range of horizontal dimensions of airflow, the author proposes a series of five scales, maso, meso, miso (to be read as my-so), moso and muso arranged in the order of the vowels, A,E,I,O,U. Mesoscale highs and lows were described on the basis of mesoanalyses, while sub-mesoscale disturbances were depicted by cataloging over 20 000 photographs of wind effects taken from low-flying aircraft during the past 15 yr. Various motions thus classified into these scales led to a conclusion that extreme winds induced by thunderstorms are associated with misoscale and mososcale airflow spawned by the parent, mesoscale disturbances.-from Author