This top-down view uses a real Rankine vortex velocity field, the same idealisation atmospheric scientists use for a tornado's core: inside the core radius the air rotates as a solid body (tangential speed v = Ω·r, growing linearly), while outside it the flow is irrotational and speed decays as v = Ω·R²/r. The two match exactly at r = R, which is the Radius of Maximum Wind (RMW) — the ring where real tornado winds, and real flying debris, are concentrated.
- A weak radial inflow draws distant debris toward the core, mimicking the converging surface flow that feeds a real tornado's updraft.
- Debris particles aren't glued to the flow — each has an inertial "stopping time" τ (Stokes drag). Light dust (small τ) tracks the swirling air almost perfectly; heavy debris (large τ) can't turn as sharply as the flow curves, so it overshoots and is centrifuged outward right at the RMW, exactly where real tornado damage debris fields are densest.
- Increase τ or Ω and watch particles fling out through the core-edge ring instead of orbiting smoothly — that overshoot is genuine particle-inertia physics, not a scripted effect.