Prosper in a dynamic world
Search

‘Mini tornado’ to be officially recognised on Fujita scale


This article was written for April Fools Day. It is not factual.

A new category will be added to the Fujita scale from 2026 to formally recognise the ‘mini tornado’.

The Fujita scale, and the revised Enhanced Fujita scale, are widely accepted scales used for rating tornado intensity. They both use damage assessments from past tornadoes to officially rate their intensity on a six-tiered scale ranging from zero to five, with five being the strongest and zero the weakest.

However, new research points out that growing use of the term ‘mini tornado’, primarily seen on social media and in mainstream media, clearly highlights the need for a new category on the scale.

The pioneering study published in the Journal of Kinetic Energy puts forward a compelling case for including ‘mini tornado’ as an official category on the Fujita and Enhanced Fujita scales globally.

“Research shows us that people like to use the term ‘tornado’ when they talk about any type of strong wind event,” says Dr. Sloof Lirpa, the study’s lead author.

“But we also know that meteorologists can be quite stubborn when it comes to technical weather terms. They really only want to use the word tornado for a tornado, or typhoon for a typhoon, but that doesn’t have to be the case.” says Dr. Lirpa.

Tornadoes are currently defined as a violently rotating column of air that is touching the ground and attached to the base of a thunderstorm.

In recent years, the term mini tornado has been used erroneously to describe some non-tornadic wind events, including microbursts, squall lines, landspouts and dust devils.


Image: Was that a mini tornado?

The study calls for that meteorologists do away with their strict technical definitions and agree to start using mini tornado officially.

The paper also suggests avoiding red and blue colours on weather maps because they are causing too many arguments on social media.

Note to media: You are welcome to republish text from the above news article as direct quotes from DTN APAC. When doing so, please reference www.apac.dtn.com in the credit.

Latest news

Satisfy your weather obsession with these news headlines from around the nation, and the world.

Queensland’s lowest solar production week in over 6 months

Thick and extensive cloud over Queensland last week caused solar production to plummet to its lowest level since last winter. A monsoonal burst combined with an active phase of the Madden-Julian Oscillation (MJO) over northern Australia last week, leading to widespread flooding rainfall and extensive cloud cover across Queensland. The image below shows the cloud […]

‘Mini tornado’ to be officially recognised on Fujita scale

This article was written for April Fools Day. It is not factual. A new category will be added to the Fujita scale from 2026 to formally recognise the ‘mini tornado’. The Fujita scale, and the revised Enhanced Fujita scale, are widely accepted scales used for rating tornado intensity. They both use damage assessments from past […]

Powerful bombing Tasman Low brings large waves to NSW ports

A powerful Tasman Low spinning off Australia’s East Coast is whipping up large waves along coastal NSW. A low pressure trough that slowly made its way from outback Queensland and over NSW over the past week, delivering widespread flooding, moved off the NSW coast this weekend. Very warm sea surface temperatures, along with support from […]

South Korea’s largest wildfires on satellite

Deadly wildfires have burnt across South Korea’s southeast since last weekend, claiming the lives of at least 28 people and displacing nearly 40,000. At least 28 people have lost their lives to the fire and more than 35,000 hectares of forest have burnt, displacing nearly 40,000 people from their homes. Officials on the ground are […]