A SMALL tornado drew the attention of dozens of airport workers on Friday morning as it whipped up clouds of dust on the runway. Onlookers snapped photos of the silent twister as it gathered speed near a parked American Airlines plane.
Luckily there were no reports of damage to any aircraft or the runway following the remarkable sighting which lasted just 10 minutes.Brian Naqqi Manco, Caicos Pine Recovery Project Manager with the DECR, and his colleague Eric Salamanca were working at the airport when they spotted the weather phenomenon.
Brian told the Weekly News: “While making a site visit for plant listing and habitat assessment near the airport, we noticed what we thought was brown smoke coming up from the runway.
“After getting a more clear view, we realised it was a big ‘dust devil’.”As they watched, the blowing dust formed a more regular shape and grew in size and speed.“It was right next to a parked airplane, and the backhoes working in the area were quickly driven away,” he said.“There was no noise coming from it, but it continued to grow, and the dust was drawn all the way up to the clouds, at which point we realised it was a tornado.”The tornado formed a sleek funnel cloud with two ribbons of dust reaching up to the clouds.“It was not the type of funnel cloud one normally sees,” Brian said, “but an inverted shape, wider at the bottom than at the top.”The funnel cloud then lost its definition and “fell apart”, scattering the dust and debris all over the runway apron.
Several more times the dust leapt up from the ground “like a fire” and looked as if it would reform.“Finally, a gigantic tower of dust shot up into the air all the way to the clouds. It looked like Sauron’s Tower from the Lord of the Rings film,” Brian exclaimed.“It only lasted a few seconds, and then dissipated. After that, several more little dust devils leapt up but it seemed the main event was over.”A tornado is a violently rotating column of air, pendant from a cumuliform cloud or underneath a cumuliform cloud, and often but not always visible as a funnel cloud.
Eric Salamanca, scientific officer with the government’s Department of Environment and Coastal Resources, explained: “Most tornadoes form from thunderstorms. You need warm, moist air and when these two air masses meet, they create instability in the atmosphere.“A change in wind direction and an increase in wind speed with increasing height creates an invisible, horizontal spinning effect in the lower atmosphere.”
In order for a vortex to be classified as a tornado, it must be in contact with the ground and the cloud base.And that is exactly what Mr Salamanca was able to confirm through a series of photographs he took at the scene.He said that the pair first saw the tornado at about 11.11am and it dissipated at about 11.16am.He told the Weekly News: “Although the vortex of the tornado was spotted near the parked American Airline plane there were no reports of damage.
“I went to the airport again this morning and asked the TCIAA if there was damage brought by the tornado and was told that there was none.”Brian added: “I’ve seen lots of waterspouts here and have suffered the effects of the relatively frequent tornadoes in North Caicos, but I had never been that close to one on land and had the opportunity to watch it.“In retrospect, it was probably pretty silly for us to stand there gawking at it, but it didn’t get big enough to be destructive.“It was fascinating to watch and gave us a memorable reminder of the forces that really run the show.“Being close was enthralling, and it had one unanticipated effect: it made me momentarily thankful that I’m not as skinny as I used to be!”
