Tornadoes

Yes. This is the most tornado-prone region in the world.

Tornadoes can strike Georgia at any time of year, but are most common in April.

Tornado Alley has an ideal climate setup for tornadoes. In the spring storm systems cause warm, moist air from the Gulf of Mexico to collide with cool air from Canada and dry air from the Rockies, resulting in the formation of strong thunderstorms. About a mile off the ground a layer of stable air holds thunderstorm activity back, allowing instability to build underneath it. As a result when the storm break through the cap the instability will be enormous, leading to explosively powerful thunderstorms. At the same time wind speed and direction varies with altitude, which sets these storms rotating and also strengthens the updraft. This rotation combined with strong thunderstorm updrafts can then produce tornadoes.

Yes. Tornado watches are issued based partly on computerized weather models and tornadic storms are tracked using Doppler radar.

Tornadoes are often but not always accompanied by hail. However, the hail is not a result of the tornado itself but the storm that produces the tornado.

No. Tornadoes have been killing people since long before 2011. The first recorded tornado fatality in North America occurred in Cambridge, Massachusetts on July 8, 1680.

The first killer tornado of 2011 was indeed in Tennessee, however. It killed one person near the town of Lynchburg on February 28.

The two most fundamental ingredients you need for tornadoes are wind shear and instability. Instability results from a warm lower atmosphere and a cold upper atmosphere. The more unstable the atmosphere is, the greater the likelihood of thunderstorms and the more likely they are to be severe. Wind shear is a difference in wind speed and direction with altitude.

With its subtropical climate, Florida is generally warm enough for thunderstorms year-round. However, upper-level winds are strongest in the winter. As a result, Florida experiences the combination of wind shear and instability most favorable for tornadoes in the late winter and early spring.

Nobody makes tornadoes; they are a natural event.

A typical tornado lasts several hours, often more than 5 hours.

The idea is that studying tornadoes, which sometimes means getting close to them, allows us to better understand them. A better understanding of tornadoes may help us predict them, which would mean better warnings for people who might be in the path of a tornado.

A tornado

A tornado may appear pink if it is lit up by the setting or rising sun. Note that you are far more likely to see a tornado at sunset than at sunrise.

It depends on what you mean by how long a tornado is.

Path length is the distance a tornado travels rather than any dimension of the tornado itself. A typical tornado has a path length of between half a mile and five miles long. Very brief tornadoes may only travel a few yards, while major tornadoes may be on the ground for more than 50 or even 100 miles.

Path width is the actual diameter of the tornado at the ground. Most tornadoes are between 50 and 200 yards wide, but very large tornadoes can be over a mile or, in extremely rare cases, over two miles wide.

The actual vortex of a tornado extends above cloud base anywhere from a mile to ten miles into the sky.

A mammatus cloud is not a cloud characteristic of tornadoes, but it is often associated with severe thunderstorms. Mammatus clouds consist of small, smooth puffs of cloud that hand down from the base of a larger cloud, often the anvil of a thunderstorm.

If a tornado strikes, you can expect there to be damage to property, downed trees, and power outages. In some cases homes may be completely destroyed.

No town holds this distinction. Wichita Falls, Texas was hit by an F5 tornado on April 3, 1964, but there were no tornadoes in Texas on April 9, 1979. However, the next day on April 10, Wichita Falls was hit by a second tornado. However, despite some popular belief, the 1979 tornado was rated F4, not F5.

If you have one, you should seek shelter in a basement or storm cellar. If your don't have access to underground, go to an interior room or hallway on the lowest floor. A bathroom on the lowest floor may also be good. If you live in a mobile home, leave for some nearby sturdier shelter, which you should plan out in advance. If you live in a tornado-prone area and don't have a basement, you may want to consider purchasing an above-ground storm shelter.

It varies widley. In most cases the coast of damage does not exceed a few hundred thousand dollars. However, in a large, violent tornado moving through a city, damage can exceed $1 billion. The costliest tornado on record caused $ 2.8 billion worth of damage when it struck Joplin, Missouri on May 22, 2011.

Fire tornadoes, also known as fire whirls or fire devils, are relatively rare phenomena, and there are no specific global statistics on the number of fatalities they cause annually. While they can be extremely dangerous and contribute to wildfires, actual deaths directly attributed to fire tornadoes are infrequent. Most fatalities in wildfires stem from the overall fire itself rather than these specific whirling flames. Overall, the focus remains on preventing large-scale wildfires to minimize casualties.

You can't get rid of tornadoes. They dissipate naturally.

Wichita Falls would be the answer, but the 1979 tornado was an F4, not an F5.

There were dozens of tornadoes on May 3, 1999, of which five were killers. The infamous Oklahoma City tornado killed 36 people. Another tornado killed 6 people in the Wichita area while yet another killed 2 people in Mulhall, Oklahoma. Two others killed one person each near Meeker and Hennessey, Oklahoma.

We have learned to avoid evacuating towns, as this only leads to people getting caught in their cars. This came from the tragic Wichita Falls, Texas tornado in 1979, which killed a number of people as they attempted to flee.

We have learned the value of live broadcast warnings, such as in the Oklahoma City tornado of 1999, where warnings saved hundreds of lives

While a tornado can occur at any time of day or night, most tornadoes occur in the late afternoon and early evening.