not only the largest of the three towns hit in Northwestern Pennsylvania, but also the town that had needed the most aid as a result of the damage from these tornadoes. The tornado that had pulverized Albion was in fact, ranked as an F-4 on the Fujita scale (Hahn). To clarify, F-4 tornadoes can have winds ranging from 210 to 260 miles per hour and can without a doubt, have winds so powerful that objects such as cars and tractor trailers could be airborne for distances of 300 feet or less! "It was
are notorious for forming in the central part of the United States, and most of them do, but they can form also form in many other parts of the world including Russia, China, South Africa, and Australia. Tornadoes form from systems that have large scale patterns of circulation and are associated with violent thunderstorms which are filled with cumulonimbus clouds. It was once thought that they formed when warm moist air collided with cold dry air which was accepted because many form during the spring
growing thunderstorm lifts the rolling air, forming vertical counter clockwise and clockwise vortices. The clockwise vortex usually dies and winds from the surface help cause the storms updraft to tilt. (Williams, p.186) T.T. Fujita, of the University of Chicago, developed a scale from 1 to 5, which is weakest to strongest. Tornadoes that have winds below 116 to 189 kilometers are classified as a F1 tornado and can cause trees to snap and windows to break. F2 tornadoes have winds of 181-253 kilometers
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.
Tornadoes are some of the most unpredictable weather we have on earth. Tornadoes belong to the category of meteorology in earth science. Meteorology is the science that deals with the weather and conditions. A tornado is a violent destructive whirling wind accompanied by a funnel-shaped cloud that progress in a narrow path over the land, (Merriam-Webster, 2014). How are tornadoes created? Tornadoes are the result of an extremely large storm called a supercell. A supercell is a storm that has the
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. The Setup May 4 began in much the same way as many other spring days in the Great Plains
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 caused by changes in the weather. Most of them occur under certain conditions. Super cells are thunderstorms in which tornadoes form inside. “A super cell takes shape
The swiftness, beauty, and absolute daunting sight of tornadoes have haunted minds and pulled at the curiosity of many. As Mother Nature’s fiercest windstorms, tornadoes do not simply lift you up and transport you to the magical Land of Oz. Rather, they habitually throw you around like a rag doll leaving a disaster behind them. Interestingly enough, tornadoes are yet to be fully understood. We know what a tornado is and how it forms but why it forms under various circumstances and not others is still
I would like to start out by what we know about tornados and outbreaks, and what is said to be the cause of such catastrophic events, such as the outbreak that occurred November 17th in the Midwestern, portion of the United States. Tornado outbreaks occur when there are multiple tornados that are said to be produced by the same weather system. The classification of an outbreak can vary depending on interpretation. It is said that in order to be classified as a “tornado outbreak” there must be a certain
Tornado Facts: What You Need to Know About the Spinning Air of Destruction Most people know what a tornado is, but not all of them know what a tornado really is. There is more to it than just a swirling mass of wind that only scares the bejeezus out of you or leaves destruction on its wake. What is a tornado? Also known as twisters, cyclone and funnel, a tornado is a tube of air that touches both the ground and clouds and spins rapidly. For a vortex of wind to be called a tornado, it must touch
This scale uses wind speed to estimate property damage that may occur. The scale has rankings from categories 1-5, which are determined by wind speed. Category 1 ranges from 74-95 mph, and is described by having very dangerous winds that will cause some damage. The second category goes from
from USA Immigration Services: http://www.geographic.org/climate/c.html National Weather Service. (2011, March 3). Tri-State Tornado Web Site. Retrieved March 3, 2011, from NOAA: http://www.crh.noaa.gov/pah/?n=1925tor NOAA. (2011, March 3). Enhanced Fujita Scale. Retrieved March 3, 2011, from NOAA: http://www.spc.noaa.gov/efscale/ NOAA. (2007, December 14). History of Tornado Forecasting. Retrieved March 4, 2011, from NOAA: http://celebrating200years.noaa.gov/magazine/tornado_forecasting/welcome.html#knowledge
Late in the day of May 22nd, a massive EF-5 (on the Enhanced Fujita scale) rated tornado struck the southern portion of the city. It has been estimated that the tornado had winds of over 200 mph (Erdman 2016, para.2). During the response phase, emergency responders immediately deployed to begin search and rescue
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
I immediately called my mother, but her land line went directly to her provider’s voicemail instead of her answering machine. I left a message, still not knowing the magnitude of the tornado’s impact. I remember joking, “I heard there was a tornado in Joplin and I’m just making sure you weren’t blown to Oz.” I followed up by sending her cell phone a text. I thought maybe she was still on stage at the community theater for their final performance of I Remember Mama. Most of my formative years
Lösch, 1940; Hotelling, 1929; Greenhut and Greenhut, 1975, Isard 1956). However, analytic difficulties in modeling increasing returns to scale marginalized the analysis of geographic aspects in mainstream economic analysis (Krugman 1991). Recent research on externalities, increasing returns to scale, and imperfect spatial competition (Dixit and Stiglitz 1977; Fujita, et al. 1999; Krugman 1991) has led to renewed interest in analyzing the spatial organization of economic activity. This is especially