Tornadoes are the fiercest storm on the planet. With tightly wound wind speeds that can reach 200 miles per hour or more, pound for pound their destructive power is unmatched by just about anything else in nature. The information in this area will help you better understand tornadoes an the threat they pose, teaching you how to protect your family.
Information about tornadoes
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Tornado Q & A: Answers to common questions about tornadoes
What causes tornadoes?
Strong winds are created whenever heat and cool air particles collide. For a real-life example of this effect, you might remember a time when you walked past the window or doorway to a restaurant kitchen and encountered a strong gust. The discrepancy between the hot air in the kitchen and the cool, air-conditioned lobby created indoor wind.
Tornadoes typically emerge out of supercell thunderstorms, particularly those that form when cool arctic air fronts from the north collide with warmer air coming up from the tropics in the south. The actual funnel of a tornado forms when there are strong shifting winds at low altitudes (1,000-2,000 feet) that meet with pockets of warm, moist air, creating a vortex that connects to a thunderstorm.
Where do most tornadoes occur?
The United States is the tornado capital of the world, with more tornadoes occurring here than anywhere else on the planet (roughly 1,000 confirmed tornadoes each year). This is largely due to geography: “Westerly winds from the Pacific Ocean drop their moisture when they push up over the Rocky Mountains, becoming high, dry and cool as they move farther east. Similar winds may descend from Canada. Meanwhile low, warm, humid air streams northward from the Gulf of Mexico. Flat terrain along these paths allows the winds to move relatively uninterrupted, at contrasting altitudes, until they run into one another.” (Fischetti, Twombly & Huffman, 2023, p. 70) Canada ranks second with around 100 tornadoes each year.
What’s the difference between a funnel cloud and a tornado?
A funnel cloud is a rotating vortex that emerges from a thunderstorm but never connects all the way to the surface to cause damage on the ground. Essentially, it’s a tornado that never completely forms. A storm may produce many funnel clouds that don’t turn into tornadoes.
What’s the difference between a dust devil and a tornado?
The thunderstorm. Dust devils typically occur on hot days and form when warmer surface air collides with cooler air currents above. They have the same anatomy as a tornado and may look exactly the same, but without the supercell storm above feeding into it, they lack the same ferocious punch. Dust devils typically pack wind speeds of 20 to 70 mph, below that of an EF0 tornado. They may wreak havoc on a picnic or even send an unsecured bouncy house flying into the air, but they’re not going to cause extensive damage.