Tornadoes not sign of things to come

OLYMPIA – Washington state has already had far more than its tiny yearly ration of tornadoes.

But twisters here are still rare and comparatively weak, and meteorologists say there’s no disaster-movie weather shift in progress to transform the Northwest’s placid drizzle into the big, sometimes deadly storms of the Midwest.

Two funnel clouds touched down in Washington on Thursday, bringing the total for the calendar year – and the past month – to five. That’s well over the yearly average of 1.8, according to the National Weather Service.

One hit near Tenino, the other outside La Center. Both damaged barns but caused no injuries.

Both were apparently products of a 10-square-mile storm cell embedded in an intense cold front that brought heavy rain to much of the western part of the state.

On Friday, the weather service said it had received reports of “cold air funnel clouds” from east of Everett and near Anacortes. Such funnel clouds, the products of swirling air rather than huge thunder cells, usually don’t reach the surface, said Brad Colman, a meteorologist at the service’s Seattle office. If they do, they commonly don’t stay on the ground very long and any damage is minimal.

Thursday’s twisters, like the three other tornadoes reported in Washington this year, were rated F-0, the weakest of six classifications, and don’t signal a big shift in the weather, said Mike McFarland, a meteorologist for the National Weather Service.

The Northwest just lacks the raw ingredients for big, showy thunderstorms that spawn tornadoes: huge masses of warm, moist air loaded with potential energy, and wind shear, a condition in which the air is moving in one direction at ground level and another at higher altitudes.

“By every measure, our thunderstorms are a little pathetic,” McFarland said Friday. “You really need that sticky air.”

Tornadoes in the Midwest and South get their energy from warm, wet air coming off the Gulf of Mexico, McFarland said. Even if dire global warming scenarios happen, the moisture coming off the Pacific is just too cold, he said. That’s why tornadoes, hurricanes and even thunderstorms are rare on the West Coast.

A tornado was reported May 21 near Spokane during a storm that also brought lightning, hail and heavy rain; another was reported in East Wenatchee on May 19.