Do tornadoes really ‘skip’ one house only to destroy another?
A tornado can destroy one house only to leave the home next door completely unscathed. Here’s how it happens
From twisters avoiding cities to the belief that opening your windows equalizes the air pressure, tornadoes are the target of more myths than just about any other type of weather disaster.
But what about the common factoid that tornadoes often ‘skip’ one house only to destroy the home next door?
Like all longstanding myths, there’s a kernel of truth to this one—but not for the reason you might think.
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Tornado myths are a dime a dozen during storm season. One we hear all the time in the aftermath of a storm is that tornadoes almost seem to pick and choose what to destroy based on their strange damage patterns.
Why do tornadoes appear to skip from building to building, damaging one home while leaving the house next door unscathed?
It comes down to luck and tornado mechanics.
A tornado isn’t always the perfect cone we see in movies and stock photos. These dynamic whirlwinds come in a variety of shapes and sizes, sometimes appearing on the horizon as a wall of dark clouds spanning more than a kilometre wide.
Some tornadoes consist of multiple vortices swirling around a larger circulation—picture it like a carousel at the fair. Each tiny vortex within the larger parent tornado can pack ferocious winds in a relatively tiny space.
When a large multiple-vortex tornado enters a neighbourhood, these tiny vortices embedded within can cause extensive damage to one home while leaving the home next door damaged but reparable.
There are also just some really small tornadoes. A twister can measure just 10 or 20 metres wide in some instances—small enough to hit an unlucky house while leaving the neighbouring homes completely untouched.
Header image created using graphics and imagery from NOAA, Wikimedia Commons, and Canva.