Tornadoes are powerful and destructive phenomena created in strong thunderstorms. Tornadoes are most common in the United States, and in the U.S., they are common in an area called Tornado Alley. Every year, tornadoes wreak havoc on the countryside, towns, and even cities. The deadliest tornado in U.S. history crossed over three states, destroyed 15,000 homes, and killed almost 700 people. There are only a couple of people on record that claim to have been in and seen the center of a tornado and lived. Tornadoes even have their own rating scale, based on their wind and damage level.Tornadoes are powerful vortexes created in thunderstorms, are common in the U.S., have its own rating scale, have only been seen on the inside a few times, have the potential to demolish towns, and can take lives. A tornado is a type of vortex. A vortex is essentially a rotating funnel that occurs from downdrafts that pull a medium, such as air or water, downward. Tornadoes are vortexes, and vortexes happen in day to day life, even if you don’t live in Tornado Alley. An everyday example of a vortex is when you pull the drain of a bathtub or sink and a rotating whirlpool occurs. This is a vortex. Tornadoes occur under this same principle, but with air in thunderstorms instead of water in a bathtub. A tornado occurs in very powerful thunderstorms, and usually it occurs in a super cell. A super cell is a type of storm that already has rotation inside of it, called a mesocycle. A tornado begins to form when a downdraft of air pulls the mesocycle down towards the ground. A funnel begins to form, and when the funnel cloud finally touches down, it officially becomes a tornado. As warm, moist air (the fuel of a tornado) is drawn into the tornado, it matures... ... middle of paper ... ...vice. National Weather Service Storm Prediction Center. March 4,2014 . Tega Jessa. Universe Today. Wordpress. March 4, 2014 < http://www.universetoday.com/52055/how-tornadoes-are-formed/ >. Windows to the Universe. National Earth Science Teachers Association. March 4, 2014 . Charles W. Bryant. HowStuffWorks. HowStuffWorks, Inc; Discovery. March 4,2014 Windows to the Universe. National Earth Science Teachers Association. March 4, 2014. John Galvin. Popular Mechanics. Hearst Communication, Inc. March 4, 2014 .
According to Webster’s Dictionary, a tornado is a rotating column of air accompanied by a funnel shaped downward extension of a cumulonimbus cloud and having a vortex several hundred yards in diameter whirling destructively at speeds of up to three hundred miles per hour. There are six classifications of tornadoes, which are measured on what is known as the Fujita Scale. These tornadoes range from an F0 to an F5, which is the most devastating of all. Abnormal warm, humid, and oppressive weather usually precede the formation of a tornado. Records of American tornadoes date back to 1804 and have been known to occur in every state of the United States.
On May 4, 2007, the town of Greensburg, Kansas was devastated by an exceptionally strong tornado. With maximum winds estimated to be in excess of 205 miles per hour, and leaving a damage path as wide as 1.7 miles, the storm would go on to be rated a rare EF5, the first recorded in the United States since 1999. When the storm finally subsided, 95 percent of Greensburg had been destroyed, killing eleven people.
Thunder rolled intensely outside, my aunt, mother, sister and I were sat calmly in the basement. We had been through this many times before; I mean afterall, Kansas was part of Tornado Alley. 2. My sister and I were young when this happened, her probably four or five, me about eight. 3. Before we had even started driving to my aunt’s house; since she’s the only one with a basement; my sister and I were complaining about being hungry. 4. Mom said she would get us something to eat soon, but then the sirens started blaring. 5. She called my aunt and told her we would be over in about ten minutes. 6. Me and my sister continued to complain about being hungry because, we always had to get what we wanted. 7. So my mom stopped at McDonald’s and got us some food. 8. After we were almost five minutes later than we said we would be my aunt panicked. 9. Jenny, my aunt, was calling like crazy. 10. When we finally got to her house she lectured my mom about how it wasn’t safe to have us out there like that with a tornado in the area. 11.Afterwards, we all sat on the porch and watched the storm. 12. That’s my favorite memory with my family, and it’s one I’ll never forget.
1. According to the USA Today Tornado Information website, a tornado is a "violently rotating column of air in contact with the ground and pendant from a thunderstorm." Therefore, thunderstorms are the first step in the creation of a tornado.
Jim Weaver McKown Barnes was born in 1933 and raised in Summerfield, Oklahoma. He is of Choctaw and Welsh descent. Before becoming an accomplished author and poet Barnes worked as a lumberjack after high school for ten years. He attended college at Southeastern Oklahoma State University where he earned his B.A. Later he went on to earn is M.A. and Ph.D at the University of Arkansas for Comparative Literature. From 1970 to 2003 Barnes was a Professor of Comparative Literature and Writer-in-Residence at Truman State University.
In the case when the giant cloud met up at any specific point the gravitational pull increases making the wind to move according to the rule of angular momentum,. These fast moving strong tornados and vertical columns of fast moving winds and are highly destructive and powerful. (Brian Cox, 2013)
When a storm strikes, the aftermath of destruction that it leaves behind can be absolutely horrific. A hurricane can destroy houses, cars, towns, cities, and sometimes even states. A hurricane can cause fatalities, millions and millions of dollars in damages, but most important, in just a couple of hours, a hurricane can change your life for good. So what is a hurricane? According to NASA, hurricanes are simply just a large swirling storm. (Knows!) Such a basic definition for such a destructive event. When you think about just a large swirling storm you generally don’t come to think about a hurricane or even a tropical storm. However, hurricanes can produce winds speeds of over 160 mph and can unleash more than 2.4 trillion gallons of rain a day. The title, “Hurricane” does not apply everywhere in the world. In northern India and Bay of Bengal they are known as cyclones. In the western Pacific Ocean they are known as typhoons.
The belief that firing a cannonball or other projectile into a spout can "break it up" has no scientific foundation. Whirlwinds In the general sense, a whirlwind is any rotating mass of air or atmospheric vortex. The term is, however, commonly restricted to atmospheric systems smaller than a tornado but larger than eddies of micro scale turbulence. A whirlwind is usually named after the visible phenomenon associated with it; thus there are dust whirls, or dust devils; sand whirls, or sand pillars; and fire, smoke, and even snow whirls, or spouts. In contrast to the pendant form of the tornado funnel, a dust or sand devil develops from the ground upward, usually under hot, clear-sky conditions. The whirl shape is normally that of a cylindrical column or an inverted cone. The axis of rotation is usually vertical, but it may be inclined. The direction of rotation may be either clockwise or counterclockwise.
Tornadoes can form anywhere given the right weather conditions. There have been some tornadoes spotted going up and down a mountain. Most tornadoes form in Tornado Alley, which is the Great Plains of America, which includes: Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Colorado, Nebraska, South Dakota, Iowa, and Minnesota. Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, holds the record for being hit by the most tornadoes in the world. In Greensburg, Kansas, there was a massive tornado that hit. It was said to be two miles wide, but here’s the words of a man, Dan Barry, who lived to tell his story. “Yes, a tornado nearly two miles wide really did mow through here one night last month. It really did kill ten of the 1,450 residents. It really did destroy just about every house, business, and church, as though determined to erase Gr...
Hurricanes and tornadoes are two very dangerous storms. There is a difference between the two of them. One of these storms which is the tornado has more speed than the hurricane. The hurricane is a dangerous storm, but it has more damage than the tornado, and does not happen as often as the tornado. Hurricanes are storms with wind and rain, and while it is moving across the Atlantic Ocean. Tornadoes have a circular motion when moving. When a tornado is moving basically looks like an ice cream cone. The storms Hurricanes and Tornadoes are two very dangerous storms, so be careful if one happens.
Tornadoes are one of the deadliest and most unpredictable villains mankind will ever face. There is no rhyme or reason, no rhythm to it’s madness. Tornados are one of the most terrifying natural events that occur, destroying homes and ending lives every year. April 29th, 1995, a calm, muggy, spring night I may never forget. Jason, a buddy I grew up with, just agreed to travel across state with me so we could visit a friend in Lubbock. Jason and I were admiring the beautiful blue bonnets, which traveled for miles like little blue birds flying close to the ground. The warm breeze brushed across the tips of the blue bonnets and allowed them to dance under the perfectly clear blue sky. In the distance, however, we could see darkness. A rumbling sky was quickly approaching.
Imagine staring out your window and noticing a wide violent rotating cloud it coming your way. The rotating cloud called a tornado. Tornadoes are one of nature’s worst natural disasters. Hundreds of tornadoes strike the United States each year. Each year an average of seventy deaths and 1,500 injuries is caused by a tornado.
Tornadoes are a very destructive piece of natural disasters that cannot be prevented and can often come with little to no warning to take shelter. Every year there are hundreds if not thousands of people that are affected by tornadoes and their aftermath. These deadly forces of nature come through areas with their damaging winds and can potentially wipe out houses off their foundation, destroy power lines, damage buildings, leave survivors with PTSD and ultimately even kill people.
Hurricanes originate as tropical disturbances over warm oceans with trade winds. The tropical turbances intensify into tropical depressions, and eventually into a tropical storm. They only originate in the tropical trade winds because the ocean temperatures are quite warm there. Powered from the heat that the sea gives off, they are steered by the east trade winds and the temperate west ones, as well as by their own ferocious energy. Around their core, winds grow with a tremendous amount of velocity creating violent seas. As they move toward the shore, they move the ocean inward, while spawning tornadoes and producing torrential rains and floods.
A tornado is defined as a violently rotating column extending from a thunderstorm to the ground. The most violent tornadoes are capable of tremendous destruction with wind speeds of two hundred and fifty miles per hour or more. Damage paths can be more than one mile wide and fifty miles long. In an average year, eight hundred tornadoes are reported nationwide, resulting in eighty deaths and over one thousand five hundred injuries. In the body of my essay, I will tell you about types of tornadoes, where tornadoes come from, where and when tornadoes occur, the damage they inflict, variations of tornadoes, and how to detect tornadoes.