Tornadoes in Ananindeua, Pará: Visual characteristics and atmospheric environments

Tornadoes are intense atmospheric vortices produced by convective storms, capable of producing significant socio-economic damage. In Brazil, such phenomena occur more commonly south of 20°S, especially in the southern states; however, tornadoes occasionally occur north of this latitude. In the last...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores: Oliveira, Maurício Ilha de, Lopes, Murilo M., Brondani, Daiane Vargas, Dias Junior, Cléo Quaresma, Oliveira, Lucas Iha Gandolfi
Tipo de recurso: artículo
Estado:Versión publicada
Fecha de publicación:2025
País:Brasil
Institución:Universidade Federal de Santa Maria (UFSM)
Repositorio:Revista Ciência e Natura (Online)
Idioma:portugués
OAI Identifier:oai:ojs.pkp.sfu.ca:article/84050
Acceso en línea:https://periodicos.ufsm.br/cienciaenatura/article/view/84050
Access Level:acceso abierto
Palabra clave:Tornados
Ananindeua
Supercélulas
Perfis termodinâmicos
Perfis cinemáticos
Tornadoes
Supercells
Thermodynamic profiles
Kinematic profiles
Descripción
Sumario:Tornadoes are intense atmospheric vortices produced by convective storms, capable of producing significant socio-economic damage. In Brazil, such phenomena occur more commonly south of 20°S, especially in the southern states; however, tornadoes occasionally occur north of this latitude. In the last two decades, the number of studies addressing these phenomena in Brazil, especially in the south and southeast regions of the country, has gradually increased, partially due to the greater public and scientific perception of the risk posed by tornado events in view of an increase in the number of tornadoes reports in Brazil, a likely consequence of the greater ease in reporting tornadoes with cell phone cameras and social media. Despite this, the number of studies addressing tornado events north of 20°S is still small and several aspects of these events are still unknown. This study documents the occurrence of tornadoes in the city of Ananindeua, located in metropolitan region of Belém, in the state of Pará, in northern Brazil. Several tornadoes have been reported in the city in recent years and there are indications of occurrence of tornadoes in the same region in recent decades. Some of these tornadoes have visual characteristics that differ from the typical appearance of landspout tornadoes, which are more commonly recorded at low latitudes, and resemble tornadoes associated with supercell thunderstorms. Ananindeua is located near several bodies of water, which can hypothetically influence the formation of tornadoes in the region through the production of vorticity close to baroclinic regions or convergence zones, both processes due to breeze systems. The main objective of this work is to document and analyze the visual characteristics and the atmospheric environment of several tornado events in Ananindeua. Based on this analysis, we seek to preliminarily identify mechanisms that affect the formation of tornadoes in the Ananindeua region and to improve the prediction of these phenomena.