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WATCH: Tornado causes large explosion near Nashville on Saturday
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NASHVILLE, TN - Striking footage is giving us a glimpse of what "blowing up" a tornado might do. The video reveals the tornado as it passed through a north Nashville neighborhood on Saturday, eventually causing an electrical explosion. The explosion left behind a massive fireball and black smoke. Immediately after, the tornado seems to disappear. Nevertheless, looks can be deceiving. The tornado was able to power through.
Explosions generate a lot of heat, which likely evaporated the water droplets which make up the tornado's funnel. As a result, the funnel disappears despite the tornadic circulation remaining intact. The National Weather Service (NWS) defines a tornado as "a violently rotating column of air touching the ground, usually attached to the base of a thunderstorm." Sometimes a tornado has a visible funnel, other times they don't. All that is required if that we have a rotating column of air in contact with the ground.
In reality, the explosion might have been able to disrupt the tornado for a brief moment. However, this was not significant as the funnel clearly restores itself toward the end of the video.
This particular tornado was given a preliminary rating of an EF-2 with top winds at around 125 mph by the NWS. This was one of many tornadoes on Saturday across the South, with tornado reports spanning multiple states.
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