Tornadoes Essay, Research Paper

Introduction: A tornado is an extremely violent and destructive whirlwind. Each year, hundreds of tornadoes touch the ground causing millions of dollars worth of damage, and claim lives. A tornado is one of natures most awesome displays of power. A tornado extends down from a mass of dark clouds in the form of a whirling funnel and moves over land. The most violent winds on earth are from a tornado, and reach speeds of up to 300 mph. This packet is designed to give information on tornadoes, safety, statistics, and history. A tornado in the northern hemisphere rotates counterclockwise, and clockwise in the southern hemisphere. It is rare to find a tornado that rotates in the wrong direction. A tornado tends to follow a northeast course at 10 to 20 mph. However, some tornadoes do follow other courses and occasionally do take on other speeds rarely. A tornado can be very devastating to many individuals and can cause many individuals lives to be changed. Whether it be death, destruction, injured or just the thoughts of the instance. With winds reaching up to 300 mph anything can be changed by the force of a tornado. This is the reasoning for watch and warnings of tornadoes, to prevent death and prepare for what is to come.

Factual Information: A tornado can occur throughout the world, however most occur in the United States. In the Spring and early Summer months is known as tornado season. Especially for the Midwest area known as tornado alley. The tornado alley is usually the hardest hit by these tornadoes. A tornado has four main stages, organization, mature, shrinking, and decaying. The organization stage, a funnel appears and then touches down. The mature stage produces the largest size of the tornado. In the shrinking stage, the funnel decreases to a thin column. The tornado becomes fragmented, and very disorganized, although still a funnel in the decaying stage. A tornado requires almost a perfect atmosphere to form. Warm moist air has to collide with cooler, dry air to produce a storm called a super cell. When the warm and cool air meet, the warm air rises to form clouds, and produces an updraft. The updraft causes clouds to develop and grow upward, by the high winds in the upper atmosphere. This condition produces winds to be blown Northeast, causing and anvil to be produces. Then we have a storm with only one updraft, and one downdraft, which can feed off itself, also known as a super cell. A tornado is likely to follow a super cell formation. A tornado produces a cloud, called a wall cloud, then a funnel is produces. One tornado can contain as many as six suction vortices. A suction vortice is a smaller funnel cloud, and may be stationary or may rotate around the center of the funnel. A suction vortice can also have suction vortices themselves, these tornadoes are the most destructive. A tornado is measured on a scale developed by Professor Fujita, known as the Fujita scale. The F-scale measures the intensity by surveying the damage produced.

Fujita ScaleStrength Description Wind SpeedF0 Gale 40-72F1 Moderate 73-112F2 Significant 113-157F3 Severe 158-206F4 Devastating 207-260F5 Incredible 261-315F6 Inconceivable 316+