Have you ever thought about the reason why some spinning games at the amusement parks are referred to as tornadoes? This goes back to the real tornado that is known to be a natural disaster. The first thing that comes to mind when tornadoes are talked about is “spinning” because a tornado can be simply defined as “spinning wind”. But what actually is a tornado? Let’s find out!
A tornado is a tube of wind that spins rapidly and extends from the base of a thunderstorm to the Earth’s surface. This means that it touches both the ground and a cloud above. In fact, it must touch the ground in order to be a tornado. It is a deadly combination of wind and power.
Most tornadoes start from a thunderstorm, mainly in Spring and Summer. When warm, moist air meets cool, dry air, they create instability in the atmosphere. A change in wind direction and an increase in wind speed with increasing height causes the air to swirl. Rising air from the ground pushes up on the swirling air and tips it over. The funnel of swirling air begins to suck up more warm air from the ground. The funnel grows longer and stretches toward the ground. When the funnel touches the ground it becomes a tornado.
A supercell thunderstorm is a long-lived thunderstorm whose updrafts and downdrafts are in near balance. These storms usually produce tornadoes that stay on the ground for a long time. Supercell thunderstorms can produce violent tornadoes with winds exceeding 200 mph.
Tornadoes appear in the form of swirling air, but they do not always appear in the same way. Sometimes a tornado appears as a funnel, other times it appears as a thin rope. There are also those tornadoes that have multiple vortices, which are thin small tornadoes rotating around, and they sometimes are not invisible or clear. Others may be nearly invisible, with only swirling dust or debris at ground levels that indicates that there is a tornado.
The width of tornadoes, duration, and the distance they travel, varies. A tornado can range from a few feet to hundreds of feet wide. Most tornadoes last less than ten minutes and travel five to ten kilometers before disappearing. In extreme cases, however, they can last several hours and cross distances over 150km! The winds usually turn counterclockwise in the Northern Hemisphere and clockwise in the Southern Hemisphere.
The winds of a tornado can reach speeds of up to 480 km per hour, which is strong enough to peel the roofs off houses, uproot trees and hurl heavy objects, such as cars, hundreds of meters!
Tornadoes are measured using the Fujita Scale (or F-scale). It rates tornadoes by how much damage they cause, ranging from F0 to F5, with F5 being the strongest and most destructive.
Tornadoes can occur almost anywhere on Earth. The United States has the most reported tornadoes per year, more than any other country. There are around 1200 tornadoes every year in the USA. Most of these tornadoes occur in a unique area nicknamed “Tornado Alley”. The states in the USA that are most frequently hit by tornadoes are Texas, Kansas, Oklahoma, and Florida.
Tornadoes can happen at any time of the year and at any time of the day. In the southern states, peak tornado season is from March through to May. Peak times for tornadoes in the northern states are during the summer. Tornadoes are most likely to occur between 3 p.m. and 9 p.m.
A tornado is a violent windstorm that has a twisting, funnel-shaped cloud, while tsunami is a very large wave caused by underwater earthquake or volcanic eruption. Tsunamis form large waves, while tornadoes form large columns of rotating air. In addition, tornadoes are primarily funnel shaped, but tsunamis come in the form of tidal waves.
When it comes to destruction, tornadoes have a narrow path of destruction, usually only a few hundred yards wide to maybe a mile. A tsunami is way more powerful and destructive, as it can be hundreds of miles wide and destroy a much larger area. Plus the water can also drown people even if the wave itself does not kill them at first.
Tornadoes and hurricanes are both destructive storms. They both rotate clockwise in the southern hemisphere and counter-clockwise in the northern hemisphere. The difference between them is that tornadoes occur mainly over land, while hurricanes begin over the ocean. Hurricanes are much larger than tornadoes. Hurricanes can last several days, whereas tornadoes only last several minutes.Tornadoes occur on all continents except Antarctica, while hurricanes occur only in the North Atlantic Ocean and Eastern Pacific Ocean. Last but not least, the frequency of tornadoes is much more than the frequency of hurricanes. Tornadoes occur several thousand times per year, while hurricanes only occur 10-15 times per year.
Both tornadoes and cyclones are types of strong, swirling storms that can be very destructive. They both rotate in a counterclockwise direction north of the equator, and in a clockwise direction south of the equator. However, cyclones usually occur in tropical areas over the Pacific and Indian Oceans, whereas tornadoes occur anywhere (except Antarctica) where cold and warm air meet.Tornado’s winds swirl around a central point in a funnel-shaped cloud. Cyclone’s winds rotate around a center of low pressure.
Tornadoes are very destructive. A tornado can destroy everything in its path. It can destroy large buildings, tear houses to pieces, uproot trees and throw vehicles away. Winds can also destroy bridges, flip trains, send cars and trucks flying, and suck all the water from a riverbed.
Adding to all this, tornadoes kill large numbers of people. The high winds of tornadoes sometimes kill or injure people by rolling them along the ground or dropping them from dangerous heights. Not only that, but people also get stuck by flying debris, such as metal rods, doors and broken glass.
The deadliest tornado in world history was the Daulatpur–Saturia tornado in Bangladesh on April 26, 1989. It killed around 1,300 people. In the United States, where tornadoes occur more than any other country, the deadliest tornado was the Tri-State Tornado in 1925. It spread through parts of Missouri, Illinois, and Indiana, and lasted over three and a half hours. This tornado killed around 695 people, destroyed 15,000 homes, and caused injuries to around 2,000 people.
As we know, tornadoes are very dangerous, and they cannot be stopped. However, there are some tips to follow in order to survive a tornado. Let us know about them.
Why not check out some more natural disaster articles: Earthquakes, Hurricanes, Volcanoes, Tsunami.
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