Tornado Research Paper

The weather condition I decided to focus on is tornados partly because they terrify me, and I wanted to learn as much as possible to see if it would lessen my fear of them. It did not.

Tornados are the most violent weather systems, and most of them have a very short life span. Tornados are rotating column of air in contact with the ground that are usually produced by a severe thunder storm. Often funnel shaped tornados come in all shapes and sizes. Funnel clouds form in response to the steep air pressure rise directed from the tornados outer most edge toward the center. Humid air pressure swells and cools as it is drawn inward towards the center of the system. Cooling of air to below its dew point causes water vapor to condense into cloud

droplets. If the air is dry, a funnel cloud may or may not form.
The United States in one of the few places globally where weather conditions and terrain are perfect to start a tornado. Although that take all over the U.S and Canada most occur in tornado valley.

Some tornados consist of two or more minor vortices that orbit each other or about a common center within a massive tornado. Multi-vortex tornados are the most destructive of all tornados, tornados are rated by their intensity and wind speed and miles per hour. Light to incredible, light tornados right from 65-85 miles per hour and incredible is less than 200

Most strong to violent tornados are made by high convective system known as a supercell thunderstorm, supercells are very energetic with updraft speeds reaching at times 150 mph.

Tornado growth in a supercell begins with an interaction between the updraft and the larger-scale horizontal wind. Within tornadic supercell, the horizontal wind exhibits strong vertical shear in both speed and direction, that is, wind strengths and veers with altitude, from south or southeast at the surface to southwest or west aloft. Tornado development requires a special mixture of atmospheric conditions and terrain, so tornados are most frequent in spring over the central United States. Threats of tornados are extremely high winds a powerful updraft, lesser vortices and an abrupt drop in air

pressure.
There are several different types of tornados waterspouts, dust devils, fire whirls and steam devils.

A waterspout is an intense columnar vortex that occurs over a body of water. They are connected to a towering cumuliform cloud or a cumulonimbus cloud. It is a non-supercell tornado over water. A dust devil is a strong, will-formed and relatively long lived whirlwind ranging from small to large. The primary vertical motion is upward, dust devil are usually harmless but can on rare occasions grow large enough to pose a threat to both people and property. Wiki A fire whirl is a whirlwind induced by fire and often made up of flame or ash. Fire whirls may occur with intense rising heat and turbulent wind conditions combine to form whirling eddies of air. These eddies can contract into a tornado structures that suck in burning debris and combustible gases. A steam devil is a small weak whirlwind over water or sometimes wet land that has a drawn fog into the vortex making it

visible.
The National Weather Service confirmed an EF1 tornado touched down during Thursday’s outbreak of severe weather. According to the NWS, the tornado hit about 3.5 miles southeast of Lafayette at Wabash National Trailers. The tornado destroyed a guard shack and caused a car to roll over. A construction trailer was damaged and nearly rolled over, the NWS said. The tornado touched down around 4:40 p.m. and had an estimated wind speed of 100 mph. There were no injuries associated with the tornado. Storm chasers in Wingate, located in Montgomery County south of Tippecanoe County, captured video of the storm as it rolled through Thursday.
Tornadoes form under a certain set of weather conditions in which three very different types of air come together in a certain way. Near the ground lies a layer of warm and humid air, along with strong south winds. Colder air and strong west or southwest winds lie in the upper atmosphere. Temperature and moisture differences between the surface and the upper levels create what we call instability. A necessary ingredient for tornado formation the change in wind speed and direction with height is known as wind shear. This wind shear is linked to the eventual development of rotation from which a tornado may form.