Tornadoes

Yes. Joplin, Missouri was under a tornado warning for 19 minutes before the tornado hit. That actually may have worked against them as after a while some people left shelter thinking the warning was a false alarm.

Tornadoes can happen in Kansas at any time, but they are most common in the months of April, May, and June.

There was never a Super Tuesday Tornado. However there was the Super Tuesday tornado outbreak, which was a series of 86 tornadoes that struck the U.S. on February 5 and 6 of 2008. Tornadoes in the outbreak impacted Texas, Louisiana, Arkansas, Missouri, Mississippi, Tennessee, Alabama, Kentucky, Illinois, and Indiana. Arkansas and Tennessee were hit by the worst tornadoes of the event.

Tornadoes cause damage through their extremely fast winds and debris carries by those winds. In the worst cases these winds are strong enough to completely blow houses away.

However, very few tornadoes actually destroy towns. Most tornadoes are short-lived, small, and weak, only causing minor to moderate damage. Even in most destructive tornadoes the worst damage is limited to a relatively small swath. The tornadoes that produce widespread catastrophic damage, such as in Tuscaloosa or Joplin, are extremely rare.

Loss of property. Most tornadoes cause some sort of property damage, but relatively few tornadoes kill.

In terms of danger to life the greatest hazard is flying debris.

If you mean in diameter, then yes. If you mean in height, then no, A typical tornado is several kilometers tall.

Yes. Tornadoes vary greatly in size and shape, ranging from narrow and threadlike spin-ups, to massive cones and vertical columns, to enormous wedge tornadoes that appear wider than they are tall.

Tornadoes occur in April every year, but it is impossible to say whether any particularl location will be hit.

a tornado is formed by a thunderstorm

There are a number of factors. First of all, the ultimate source of a tornado's energy is warm, moist air. Connecticut does not have a climate hot enough for high tornado activity. Second, the types of fronts that often produce tornadic thunderstorms on the Great Plains are often weaker by the time they reach the eastern U.S. and the thunderstorms less organized.

There has never been a recorded tornado in Antarctica.

The warning system for tornadoes has improved, giving people a better chance to get to safety before a tornado hits.

Tornadoes themselves cannot be seen from space because they are blocked from above by the thunderstorms that produce them. The link below shows a storm satellite of a storm system that was producing tornadoes at the time the picture was taken. The tornadoes themselves formed under the storms that are seen as the right-hand branch of the spiral-shaped system. Again, what you are seeing is the storm that produced the tornadoes, not the tornadoes themselves. At this resolution individual tornadoes would be too small to see anyway.

A "double tornado" is scientifically known as a multiple vortex or multivortex tornado. In such tornadoes smaller vortices form within the main vortex of the tornado. These subvortices usually do not last long and individually do not impact the overall tornado very much. Rather than indicating a lack of organization in the tornado, a multivortex structure usually indicates a strong tornado.

How long a tornado lasts can vary widely. The average tornado lasts about 10 minutes. But tornadoes have been known to last as little as 10 seconds and as long as 3.5 hours. Not many tornadoes last more than 30 minutes.

As to when they occur, tornadoes can form at any time of day or night, but are most common in the later afternoon and early evening. Similarly, tornadoes can occur at any time of year, but happen primarily in the spring.

Florida experiences warm weather year round, however in the later winter and early spring the upper atmosphere is cold, which makes for an unstable atmosphere if the lower atmosphere remains warm. This, combined with a cold front can lead to thunderstorms that can produce tornadoes.

In the U.S. there were 1,297 confirmed tornadoes in 1992. Worldwide statistics are not available.

It can be relatively safe, but some other room or hallway without exterior walls would probably be safer. Also, if your apartment is on an upper floor you may want to go to one of the lower floors if a tornado threatens.

The main reason is that warnings are better now than they were some decades ago, due to increased knowledge of tornadoes, better radar, and the work of many storm spotters. This helps people get to safety.

The main threat in a tornado is flying debris, which can cause serious injury or death. Collapsing buildings and falling trees are also a hazard. The winds themselves are often strong enough to pick a up and throw a person. After a tornado there can be danger from downed power lines, broken glass and other sharp objects, and broken gas lines.

In the U.S. tornado kill more people annually than any other type of severe weather or storm, but heat waves are the biggest killer of any U.S. weather. Worldwide the deadliest form of weather event is flooding.

thousands of people are affected

There were 123 tornadoes in Illinois in 2006.

Yes. On March 2, 2012 West Liberty, Kentucky was hit by an EF3 tornado that was part of a major outbreak. The tornado was a mile wide and traveled 95 miles, killing 11 people.

There were 75 tornadoes in Arkansas in 2011.