Tornadoes

We can build houses with reinforced walls, roofs, and connections to their foundations to reduce the potential damage. Houses can have built-in storm shelters to offer people a safe place. People should have batteries, food, water, and flashlights ready, as tornado frequently knock out electricity. A battery-operate weather radio can keep you alerted to dangerous weather when power fails. If a tornado threatens the area where you live, seek shelter underground or in an interior room on the lowest floor in your house.

Phoenix does not experience tornadoes every year, nor does any city. Since official records began in 1950 Phoenix and its suburbs have experienced about 35 tornadoes, most of them weak, making for an average of about one tornado every two years.

There is no such classification system. "Fire tornadoes" or, more properly, firewhirls are not true tornadoes but a form of whirlwind similar to dust devils. The Enhanced Fujita scale rates tornadoes based on the severity of the damage caused by their winds. The winds in a firewhirl are rarely strong enough to produce significant damage. The damage they cause is a result of them spreading fire, so the same rating system would not apply.

Tornadoes do not create anything; they only destroy.

Some methods that do not deviate far from normal construction for small structures such as houses include hurricane ties to help secure the roof, steel anchor bolts for the foundation, and closely spaced beams in the wall. Structures made for intense tornadoes may be build with steel-reinforced concrete.

Oklahoma averages about 65 tornadoes per year, though they are not evenly distributed throughout the year. Tornadoes tend to occur in outbreaks which hit Oklahoma most frequently in the spring.

Most tornadoes develop from a larger circulation called a mesocyclone, which can be found in some thunderstorms. The mesocyclone gets its rotation from horizontally rolling air masses getting pulled into the thunderstorm updraft,

Tornadoes themselves do not cause other natural disasters, but since they are a product of severe thunderstorms and so may be accompanied by flash floods, hailstorms, and downbursts. Some tornadoes develop in the outer storm bands of hurricanes.

The primary form of mitigation we use for tornadoes is giving out warnings in advance. Such warnings do not reduce the property damage but they reduce the number of people who are killed or injured. Some homes now have built in tornado shelters.

The longest-lasting tornado on record was the Tri-State tornado of March 18, 1925. It lasted for 3 hours and 29 minutes.

Tornadoes can tear up vegetation and destroy animal habitats. Swaths of wooded areas may be leveled.

Environmental damage mainly consists of damaged or destroyed vegetation. Trees, which have a high profile, are particularly vulnerable.

Damage to houses varies considerably depending on how strong the tornado is and the construction of the house. At the low end, a weak tornado may only peel away some shingles and siding. At the high end, a violent tornado can completely obliterate a house, leaving an empty foundation. Tornadoes of intermediate strength may tear off roofs and collapse walls.

A tornado is considered strong if it is rated F2 or F3 while F4 and F5 tornadoes are rated as violent. About 10% of tornadoes are rated as strong while fewer than 1% are rated as violent.

Tennessee averages a little less than 30 tornadoes per year.

No single person holds that title. A number of people have been inside tornadoes and lived.

Some can, some cannot. It is best in either case to simply avoid such weather by flying around it as the air above these storms is still likely to be very turbulent.

Only to a very limited degree. Using forecast models it is possible to predict the approximate time of day, to within a few hours, when a region is at risk of experiencing tornadoes. However, this only gives a general risk assessment and cannot tell when or where individual tornadoes will occur. On the shorter term, Doppler radar can detect rotation in a storm that could produce a tornado, but even if the potential exists, a tornado might not occur and scientists still aren't sure why. The radar can also detect the circulation of the tornado itself, though it can't tell if it is touching the ground. Once a tornado is detected, it is possible to determine what places may be in the path, though we still can't tell if a tornado will last long enough to hit a given location.

On the day of the Waco tornado a weather system pushed dry air from New Mexico across Texas, where it collided with warm, humid air from the Gulf of Mexico, forming what is called a dry line. As the moist air was force over the dry air, thunderstorms began to develop. These storms were particularly strong and, when they encountered wind shear, began to rotate and produce tornadoes. One of these storms, possibly strengthened by air flowing out of a nearby storm, became especially strong and spawned an especially violent tornado southwest of Waco. That tornado tracked right through Waco.

As of the writing of this answer at 5:45 PM EDT, May 9, 2016 there are two confirmed tornadoes on the ground near Davis, Oklahoma and Lincoln, Nebraska. These tornadoes will probably dissipate by the time you read this.

Sometimes. The sounds tornadoes make vary. People have described a roar like a train, jet engine, or waterfall. Others have described a high-pitched whistle. Some say the sound cannot be compared to anything else they have heard. In some cases the time just before a tornado strikes is silent.

It is simply because they are small targets. The downtown area of a large city has the same chance of being hit by a tornado as an area of open country that is the same size. We see tornado tearing across open country so often because much more of the land is open country than city.

Let's look at the math behind it. Kansas has the highest concentration of tornadoes in the U.S. It averages about 90 tornadoes per year and has an area of about 82,000 square miles. This works out to about 1 tornado for every 910 square miles in an average year.

A tornado is a violently rotating whirlwind that occurs during some thunderstorm. Tornadoes produce extremely powerful winds and are capable of causing great destruction, injury, and loss of life.

There is none. Tornadoes are not waves, they are violent whirlwinds and they generally occur on land. When they do occur they do not produce much in the way of waves, as the winds of a tornado only cover a small area.