A few months ago I figured out how hurricanes work. Yeah, warm water warms the air, it rises, condenses, inflow, coriolis, blah blah.
What really matters is the positive feedback: a storm whips the ocean, causing MORE transfer of ocean heat to air. Voila, a storm that builds over warm water.
What I very recently understood is the Fujita model of rear flank downdrafts feeding into the angular momentum of tornadoes. That is how they spin up: the rising air cools and falls and the falling behind the updraft creates angular momentum that is spun up by the vacuum. Dynamic pipe effect: the vacuum can't suck in air that is circling it, because of centrifugal 'forces'.
When the air gets hostile, its very very cool, and very weird.
