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The formation of tornadoes is complicated.

First, you need thunderstorms, then you need a condition called wind shear, in which the speed or direction of the wind changes with altitude. If the shear is strong enough it can essentially tilt a thunderstorm. This separates the updraft and downdraft of the thunderstorm, preventing them from interfering with one another. This allows the storm to become stronger and last longer.

Additionally, if the wind shear is strong enough it can start the air rolling in what is called horizontal vorticity. This horizontal vorticity can then be turned vertical by a thunderstorm's updraft. When this happens, the thunderstorm may start rotating. The rotation is especially strong in an updraft called a mesocyclone. If the storm intensifies rapidly enough, a relatively warm downdraft called a rear-flank downdraft or RFD can wrap around the bottom part of the mesocyclone. This can then tighten and intensify its rotation and bring it down to the ground to produce a tornado.

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Can a tornado form without clouds?

No. Tornadoes form from thunderstorms. By definition a tornado must make contact with both the ground and the cloud base. However, small whirlwinds, such as dust devils, can form on cloudless days. These look somewhat like tornadoes, but are nowhere near as strong.


What must happen in the atmosphere for a thunderstorm to become a tornado?

For a thunderstorm to produce a tornado, there must be a strong updraft to provide the necessary rotation within the storm. Additionally, wind shear in the atmosphere helps to tilt the rotating updraft, leading to the formation of a tornado. If these conditions are present, a tornado can form within a thunderstorm.


How do tornadoes form in tornadoes?

This best seems to describe a multiple vortex tornado. This is a tornado that has smaller vortices, called suction vortices, circling inside the main vortex. The development of such a tornado is complicated. Let's start with a single vortex tornado. Contrary to popular belief the strongest winds in a tornado are at the edge of the funnel rather than at the center. However, the lowest pressure in a tornado is at the center. While air mostly moves up in a tornado, in some especially strong ones, the low pressure causes a downdraft to move down the center of the tornado. This is a process called vortex breakdown. When this downdraft reaches ground level the air must move outward, but it soon meets the air flowing into the tornado. This interaction creates and area of very strong convergence where the inflow and outflow meet, and some of the tornado's angular momentum gets converted into smaller vortices within the main circulation. These suction vortices create looping swaths of more severe damage within the main damage path.


Why does it hail when there's no tornado outside?

Tornadoes themselves are not the cause of hail, thunderstorms are. In order to produce hail a storm must have a strong updraft to keep hailstones in the air as they form and a fairly large amount of turbulence to create the cycle that forms hail. Tornadoes also need a strong updraft to form but also need other factors such as rotation in the storm to form, but this rotation isn't needed for hail.


What conditions are necessary for a rainbow to occur?

A rainbow occurs when sunlight is refracted, reflected, and dispersed in raindrops, producing a spectrum of light. The necessary conditions for a rainbow to form include sunlight, raindrops, and the observer positioned between the sun and the rain.

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