Home▸Nature & Climate▸2D Tornado — Top-Down Vortex

2D Tornado — Top-Down Rankine Vortex

A 2D top-down companion to the 3D Tornado: a real Rankine vortex velocity field (solid-body rotation inside the core, irrotational 1/r decay outside) advects inertial debris particles, showing exactly why the fastest winds and the flung debris both concentrate at the radius of maximum wind.

Nature & Climate2DModerate60 FPS📱 Mobile-adapted💨 Air & Wind ⇄ 3D version

Details

CategoryNature & Climate

RenderingCanvas 2D

DifficultyModerate

Target FPS60

ControlsSliders for core radius, rotation rate, surface inflow, debris inertia (stopping time) and particle count; debris-type selector; toggles for velocity-field arrows and the core/RMW ring; Pause, Calm and Gust buttons; drag the vortex centre on the canvas.

naturetornadovortexRankine vortexfluid dynamicsparticle advectionweather2d

Related simulations

Gerstner Ocean Waves SimulationExplore realistic ocean waves created using GLSL shaders! Adjust wind speed and storm…

Shifting Continental Plates – A Dynamic ModelExplore the powerful forces shaping our planet as you adjust the speed of plate movement and…

Interactive OceanGLSL: foam, moonlight reflection, Fresnel effect. Presets — calm, storm, ripple, tsunami.… ⊞ All 426 in Nature & Climate →

Seen from above, this companion to the 3D Tornado simulation replaces decorative spinning with a real Rankine vortex velocity field — solid-body rotation inside the core radius and 1/r irrotational decay outside it — and advects inertial debris particles through that field with genuine Stokes-drag dynamics, so light dust rides the swirl while heavy debris centrifuges outward right at the radius of maximum wind.

⚙ Under the hood

A top-down 2D companion to the 3D Tornado: a real Rankine vortex velocity field (solid-body rotation inside the core radius, irrotational 1/r decay outside it) advects inertial debris particles with genuine Stokes-drag dynamics. Light dust tracks the swirl closely while heavy debris can't turn as sharply as the flow curves and is centrifuged outward right at the radius of maximum wind — real fluid-vortex physics, not decorative spinning.

naturetornadovortexRankine vortexfluid dynamicsparticle advectionweather2d

2D · HTML5 Canvas 2D · 60 FPS target · runs fully client-side, no install