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Tornado essay facts (fre
Research about tornadoes
A short note on tornado
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A tornado is a rotating column of air that extends from a thunderstorm to the ground. A tornado needs various factors to form, and is then formed by, warm moist air, and cool dry air. Once warm moist air and cool dry air meet, instability is formed, creating a change in wind direction. As a change in wind direction occurs, so does a horizontal spinning effect, that, with rising air, then tilts the air from horizontal to vertical, thus creating a tornado. Other factors included in forming a tornado, are, thunderstorms, an unstable atmosphere, and high winds.
A tornado can be forecasted, but it is not the easiest to do, due to so many factors that come into play. Meteologists use many different tools to forecast tornadoes. Meteologists use, barometers, thermometers, and anemometers to calculate tornado factors. Meteologists also use doppler radars, and if conditions develop that are favorable for tornadoes, then a tornado or severe thunderstorm watch is issued.
Tornadoes tend to impact human economy in many ways negatively. Firstly, depending on how strong the tornado is, tornadoes can pick up cars, houses, people, and even trees, and hurl them somewhere random. Not only can tornadoes create lots of chaos, but they can also impact cities as a whole. Each year, people
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are also killed by airborne debris from tornadoes. According to research, the frequency and intensity is increasing over time, and scientists are still studying to understand why, and how humans are affecting tornadoes occurency.
There has been an upward trend in storms causing financial losses, but there are also societal contributions to this trend, such as increases in population and wealth. Recently, scientists have also discovered that the number of tornadoes that occur in outbreaks is increasing by about 0.66 percent per year. Scientists are saying that, global warming could be cause of an increase in tornadoes and natural disasters. Fuel for storms is heat, and heat causes it causes more evaporation of water which is critical to generate
storms. In conclusion, a tornado is a funnel of air that rotates, moving rapidly, and can destroy people, building, and towns. Tornadoes tend to look smoky and may contain multiple small tornadoes. Tornadoes impact humans and society negatively in many ways, and without tornadoes, life would be much different. Tornadoes are triggered by atmospheric instability, thunderstorms, and high wind speeds. They are also increasing in frequency and intensity over the years, because of global warming and climate change. Some other facts about tornadoes, are that, they can be referred to as cyclones or twisters. A majority of tornadoes have a wind speed that is less than 100 miles per hour, and the majority of tornadoes only travel a few miles before they tend to break off into debris. Tornadoes also only tend to last a few minutes, and extreme tornadoes can have wind speeds that reach over three hundred miles per hour. Extreme tornadoes tend to travel about one hundred miles or more before they break off into debris. Lastly, there are about one thousand to one thousand-two hundred tornadoes annually in the United States.
On May 22nd, 2011 a massive tornado hit Joplin, Missouri killing 162 people and injuring 1150. With wind speeds of 322km/h, the tornado made a total cost of over $2 billion for the city. 8000 structures were destroyed, 2000 of which were homes. Many people were left homeless. The tornado held an incredible EF5 rating on the Fujita scale, measured from the amount of destruction. The tragic event lasted 38 minutes, from 5:34 pm to 6:12pm. Cool wind from the Rockies in Canada and warm wind from the gulf of Mexico formed into a supercell thunderstorm creating a tornado in Kansas. The tornado rapidly moved into Joplin and continued on its 35 km path.
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.
The 1953 Waco Tornado was the deadliest tornado in Texas since 1900. The violent and deadly twister ripped through the downtown area killing and injuring hundreds. 600 homes were destroyed and 5 people were hit and killed in cars.Injured people were 597 and 114 killed.
On May 20th, 2013 a EF 5 tornado hit Moore, Oklahoma and surrounding towns, with a path as wide as 1.3 miles wide (2.1 km) and had a wind speed, estimated at its peak, of 210 miles per hour (340 km/h). Killing 24 people, and injuring 377, this was one of the United States worst tornadoes in the past few years, along side the Joplin, Missouri tornado, in 2011. One of Mother Nature’s most dangerous and still very mysterious phenomenons averages about 1,200 reported each year, resulting in 80 deaths and injuring 1500. With very little known about them, especially whether or not they will form is one of the questions that plague meteorologist to this very day. What causes tornadoes, how does the tilt and gravity of the earth affect the winds to produce a tornado, and what will the future hold about our understanding of tornadoes?
In this paper, I will discuss what tornadoes are and how they form, what different forms of tornadoes there are, what tornado watches and warning are and give examples of tornadoes in Oklahoma and what destruction they caused, also while providing information about the Doppler radar.
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.
Tornadoes are devastating atmospheric events that affect the ecology and the lives of people in their paths. Tornadoes are defined as “a violently rotating column of air, in contact with the ground, either pendant from a cumuliform cloud or underneath a cumuliform cloud, and often (but not always) visible as a funnel cloud” (Glossary of Meteorology, 2011). The Tri-state tornado was the deadliest tornado in the United States. It stayed on the ground for a total of 219 miles through areas of Missouri, Illinois, and Indiana, killed a total of 695 people, and an estimated $16.5 million in damages (National Weather Service, 2011). Luckily, the tornado’s path was largely rural farmland with scattered small towns between them.
Tornadoes may not be the first hazard that is thought of when you think of Eastern North Carolina, but they do happen here fairly often. The National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration defines a tornado as “a narrow, violently rotating column of air that extends from the base of a thunderstorm to the ground.” (NOAA) Tornadoes can catch people off guard and lead to severe injuries or death. Tornadoes can range from mild to extremely violent. They occur in many parts of the world and the United States. Almost any adult is aware of what and where Tornado Alley is. For those that are not aware, it is an area of the central United States that has a very high amount of tornadoes that occur each year. This area runs from the most northern state to the most southern state and is several states wide. It is estimated that roughly 1,200 tornadoes occur each year that are documented. They may occur at any time of the day or night. Spring and summer see the most tornadoes but they may happen in other seasons also.
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.
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.
A tornado requires some basic ingredients to come together. First, energy in the form of warm, moist air must exist to feed thunder storms. Second, there must be a top layer of hot, dry air called a cap. This air acts like a lid on a simmering pot, holding in the warm air that’s accumulating in the atmosphere below until the storm’s ready to burst. Last, there has to be rotating winds speeding in oppositedirections at two different levels in the atmosphere, a phenomenon called wind shear, can cause the storms to rotate. Tornado alley is perfectly situated to meet these requirements. (1)
A. Tornadoes are one of the most severe types of weather phenomena. While many people fear tornadoes and their destructive power, few people do not understand their real causes and effects, nor are they aware of how to protect themselves from their devastating force. B. Tornadoes, violently rotating columns of air, occur when a change in wind direction, coupled with an increase in wind speed, results in a spinning effect in the lower atmosphere. These whirling movements, which may not be visible to the naked eye, are exacerbated when the rotating air column shifts from a horizontal to a vertical position. As the revolving cloud draws the warm air that surrounds it at ground level, its spinning motion begins to accelerate, thereby tornadoes become pendent from low pressure storm clouds.
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.
The tornado is one of mother earth’s most fierce forces of nature. The winds from a tornado devastate anything and everything in its path; even what isn’t in its path is effected from the projectiles tornadoes produce from anything in the area;being launched at lethal speeds, and covering miles in distance(ready.gov). Oklahoma is one of the places most effected by tornadoes, because they are so common.
These are all important tornado facts and reasons of why this phenomenon occurs. Tornadoes are natural disasters that we can not do anything about, we just have to learn to live with them and be smart about how we approach them. There is no preventing a tornado from occurring so we must merely take all the precautions so we will be safe.