Tornadoes

A tornado can cause destruction by uprooting trees, damaging buildings, and throwing debris at high speeds. It can also result in injuries and fatalities due to its strong winds and flying objects.

No the fastest a tornado is known to have traveled is 73 mph.

The fastest winds ever recorded in a tornado were just over 300mph, which is about as strong as they get.

Before a tornado the clouds will often be an unusually greenish/grey and dark color and after hail or heavy rain it might be really calm outside no birds, no wind, no thunder. At night blue or white power flashes which means power lines are being snapped by winds if you got an emergancy weather radio in your basement or cellar than you can always plug that in and listen to the reports. Also the temperature might change to cold or warm sometimes. Their may also be rotating clouds or a wall cloud which means the storm may be strong enough to preduce a tornado and also low rumbling noises that doesn't fade in a few seconds kind of like thunder.

A tornado outbreak is a series of multiple tornadoes (usually at least six) produced by the same storm system (i.e. a system of multiple storms) in a geographic area in a relatively short period of time (usually 48 hours or less).

A tornado family is a series of tornadoes produced in succession by a single storm as it goes through cycles.

In a tornado outbreak the tornado tracks are scattered across a given area such as a state or several states.

In a tornado family several tornado tracks occur along the same approximate line.

Sometimes there are several tornado families within an outbreak.

Very large tornadoes can be well over a mile wide. The largest tornado on record, occurring near El Reno, Oklahoma in 2013, was 2.6 miles wide.

A typical tornado, however, is only 50 to 100 yards wide.

It can range from stationary to over 70 mph. The average is about 30 mph.
The fastest moving tornado ever recorded traveled at 73 mph. Most tornadoes travel at 30-40 mph. Some are nearly stationary.

Wind speeds in a tornado can range from 65 mph to over 300 mph (105 km/h to 480 km/h), with some of the most intense tornadoes exhibiting wind speeds over 200 mph (320 km/h). The speed of wind in a tornado can vary depending on the strength and size of the tornado.

That would most likely be a tornado, but winds usually aren't so fast.

I'm not exactly too sure what they would say but if you turned on your TV at the time I'm sure they would say something like this: "A tornado has been spotted in Oklahoma. Take shelter immediately." They would definitely warn of the on-coming storm.

Even the NWS doesn't know there IS going to be a tornado until it has formed. Whenever weather conditions that may produce tornadoes exist, they issue a "Tornado Watch" for the area. They monitor their equipment (especially the dopler radar) to determine where one MAY be forming and which direction it will travel if it forms. Once a funnel cloud has formed, they issue a "Tornado Warning" and predict it's path.

People have adapted to dealing with tornadoes by building shelters, or finding a safe place within their homes. They have learned to understand the type of weather that is likely to result in tornadoes. They have become accustomed to listening to warnings, and taking them seriously.

Yes, although (according to the McGraw-Hill Encyclopedia of Science and Technology) most violent tornadoes are in the US , east of the Rockies. Here's a little information from the Australian Government site: http://www.bom.gov.au/weather/nsw/sevwx/warning_service.shtml and some general tornado information from answers.com - http://www.answers.com/topic/tornado. If you want some pictures of NSW tornadoes - http://australiasevereweather.com/tornadoes_australia.htm

The area with the highest tornado frequency in the U.S. is Tornado Alley. A region stretching across the Great Plains from Texas to South Dakota and Iowa. Another tornado hot spot is in Florida.

This depends on whether you are in the northern or southern hemisphere. The southern hemisphere has its summer solstice (the longest day of the year) in December: after that, the southern hemisphere gradually begins to tilt away from the sun, while the northern hemisphere begins to tilt more towards the sun as it moves beyond winter.

Tornadoes spin due to a combination of strong updrafts and wind shear. The updrafts lift warm, moist air, while wind shear causes the air to rotate and tilt. This creates a spinning motion that can evolve into a tornado under the right atmospheric conditions.

Tornadoes normally rotate cyclonically in direction:

- counterclockwise in the northern hemisphere

- clockwise in the southern hemisphere

But while large-scale storms always rotate cyclonically due to the Coriolis effect, thunderstorms and tornadoes are so small that the direct influence of the Coriolis effect is inconsequential. Supercells and tornadoes rotate cyclonically in numerical simulations even when the Coriolis effect is neglected. Low-level mesocyclones and tornadoes owe their rotation to complex processes within the supercell and ambient environment.

Approximately 1% of tornadoes rotate in an anticyclonic direction. Typically, only landspouts and gustnadoes rotate anticyclonically, and usually only those which form on the anticyclonic shear side of the descending rear flank downdraft in a cyclonic supercell. However, on rare occasions, anticyclonic tornadoes form in association with the mesoanticyclone of an anticyclonic supercell, in the same manner as the typical cyclonic tornado, or as a "companion tornado," either as a satellite tornado or associated with anticyclonic eddies within a supercell.

No. There has been a tornado with wind speeds of 302 mph +/20 mph. That was recorded by Doppler on wheels. So winds may have been over 318 mph which was the upper limit of F5 winds on the original Fujita scale. However the Fujita Scale scale is based on damage, not wind speed (the wind speeds for each category are only estimates) and F5 damage is complete destruction, that tornado was rate F5.

On the Enhanced Fujita Scale the is no EF6 category at all. EF5 wind estimates have no upper bound.

Tornadoes occur when strong updrafts and wind shear create a rotating column of air within a thunderstorm. These rotating columns can then touch the ground and cause the characteristic funnel cloud associated with tornadoes. Tornadoes are most common in the central United States, known as Tornado Alley, but can occur in many regions around the world.

A fire devil or fire whirl is the more dangerous of the two, though they are both potentially deadly. Fire whirlds can produce wind speeds comparable to a tornado of moderate intensity, but are most dangerous for their ability to spread a fire quickly. The flames in a fire whirl burn hotter than in a normal flame.

Landspouts are technically tornadoes, but are generally not as strong as supercell-spawned tornadoes. Landspouts rarely exceed EF1 intensity. These tornadoes can occasionally kill, but are unlikely to harm someone who takes adequate shelter.

No. A tornado is worse than an earthquake because it is VERY unlikely you will be in the spot the earthquake mainly hits (the ripping/open ground which people are most worried about.) Places where earthquakes usually hit are usually built to stand a 7 or lower point earthquake. Tornadoes, however, you can not save your valuables and the tornado keeps moving, unlike an earthquake. Tornadoes are very much worse

No. From the ground a hurricane looks mostly like a very intense storm with extreme wind and torrential rain.

Viewed from space a hurricane typically has a spiral shape to it, often with an eye in the center.

The United States gets the most tornados than any other country, nearly four times more than Europe, excluding the small stuff.

This is most due to the fact that there aren't any major east to west mountain ranges to impede a torndadoes progress, like other countries and continents have in their topography. America is surrounded by oceans and the Gulf of Mexico, all of which are liable to have storms of all kinds, especially when the Atlantic tagteams with the Gulf, which results in a Katrina.

The tornado that struck the Niles are was at F5 intensity at the time; houses were wiped clean off their foundations. Damage in Ohio totaled $60 million. The same tornado also devastated Wheatland, Pennsylvania.

Anyone who is in the path of a tornado will be affected. This may come in the form of property damage, injury, or death. Tornadoes can happen just about anywhere, but are most common in the Central United States.

Yes, tornadoes can rotate in different directions based on the dynamics of the parent storm system. In the Northern Hemisphere, tornadoes typically rotate counterclockwise, while in the Southern Hemisphere they rotate clockwise due to the Coriolis effect. Additionally, some tornadoes may exhibit multiple vortices or erratic rotation patterns.