Ray Sondag

A tornado struck Guatemala City, Guatemala on Thursday. It passed from near the Guatemala Country Club towards Zone 4, causing damage commensurate with winds in the high-end EF1 range, or 95+ mph. This appears to be a supercell tornado born from a legitimate rotating thunderstorms. The path length appears to be about 2.75 miles long and 50 meters wide. The tornado was a "skipper" of sorts, with intermittent suction vortices causing damage as the parent funnel loomed overhead. At only 14.6°N, it’s rare to get supercell tornadoes in the tropics. The weaker Coriolis force rarely brews the larger-scale low pressure systems that produce shear (changing winds with height) favorable for supercells (rotating thunderstorms). This is an exceptional event. While the Guatemalan National Seismic Institute commented that the tornado was not a tornado, but rather a "whirlwind," we can assure you it was – indeed – a tornado. There is no distinction between "torbellinos" and "tornadoes", as they are the same phenomenon and are dangerous.