A researcher discovered a ferocious tornado that no one knew about after he spotted a “huge scar” on Google Maps.
Matej Lipar, a cave researcher at Curtin University, was looking back at satellite images of the Nullabor Plain in Australia on Google Maps when he came across the unusual feature.
But as he searched for caves in the southern Australian outback, Lipar saw an enormous, mysterious scar etched into the barren landscape.
The unusual gash tore across Australia’s Nullabor Plain, which is a remote, dry, and treeless stretch of land. The scar measured around seven miles long and between 525 and 820 feet wide.
According to a report in The Conservation, Lipar investigated the scar further and discovered that it was created by a fierce tornado that no-one knew had happened.
Lipar looked back at older Google satellite imagery and found that the feature first appeared after a tornado occurred sometime between November 16 and 18, 2022.
“Blue circular patterns appeared alongside the scar, indicating pools of water associated with heavy rain,” Lipar writes in the piece in The Conversation.
“Upon closer investigation, we realised the scar was created by a ferocious tornado that no one knew had occurred.”
Lipar and his colleagues traveled to the site in May this year to examine and photograph the scar and the neighboring landscape. The team published their findings in a study in the Journal of Southern Hemisphere Earth Systems Science.
The researchers found that the tornado likely lasted between seven and 13 minutes. Unlike tornadoes that strike populated areas, this one caused no damage to homes or towns. However, it still left a significant mark, stripping away soil and vegetation while altering the landscape.
Remarkably, the scar remained clearly visible even 18 months later, both in satellite imagery and on the ground. This enduring visibility is likely due to the slow regrowth of vegetation in the arid environment, which hadn’t yet covered the eroded area.
Lipar says that the discovery emphasizes the importance of satellite imagery in identifying and analyzing weather phenomena in remote locations.
Lipar writes: “This fascinating discovery on the Nullarbor Plain shows how powerful and unpredictable nature can be — sometimes without us knowing.”
Image credits: Header photo via Matej Lipar/ Google Earth.