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🌪️ Vortex Stretching Tornado Lab

A 3D Rankine-vortex tornado core that spins up as its radius shrinks, conserving angular momentum exactly like a figure skater pulling in their arms — with a live cyclostrophic pressure-deficit field.

Physics & Mechanics3DAdvanced60 FPS💨 Air & Wind

A Rankine combined vortex tornado core spins up as its radius shrinks, conserving angular momentum exactly like a figure skater pulling in their arms — with tracer particles and a live cyclostrophic pressure-deficit field.

🔬 What It Demonstrates

Vortex stretching, angular momentum conservation, the Rankine combined vortex wind profile, and the cyclostrophic pressure balance that produces a tornado's characteristic funnel and destructive core winds.

🎮 How to Use

Set the mesocyclone's baseline spin, then shrink the vortex stretching (core radius) slider and watch tangential speed and pressure deficit rise automatically, following real momentum conservation.

💡 Did You Know?

Central pressure deficits inside strong tornadoes can exceed 100 hectopascals, roughly ten times the drop found in a hurricane's eye — packed into a core just tens of metres wide.

⚙ Under the hood

fluid-dynamicstornadovortexangular momentumsimulation3d physicsThree.js

3D · Three.js / WebGL renderer · 60 FPS target · runs fully client-side, no install