Tornadoes

It varies considerably from one year to the next. While the average over the past 23 years is about 45 per year, it has ranged from a low of 12 to a high of 109.

Tornadoes are caused by severe thunderstorms within the atmosphere. The interaction between warm, moist air and cool, dry air, along with wind patterns and atmospheric instability, can create the conditions necessary for tornado formation.

A tornado is a type of severe weather phenomenon that can form within certain types of clouds, specifically supercell thunderstorm clouds. Tornadoes are associated with strong updrafts and rotating winds within these storm clouds. While not all clouds produce tornadoes, the presence of specific cloud types can contribute to the formation of tornadoes under the right atmospheric conditions.

Latent heat is thermal energy that cannot be detected by temperature difference. In earth's atmosphere much of the latent heat is held by water vapor. In other words: warm, moist air holds a large amount of energy in the form of latent heat. It is this energy, released by the condensation of water vapor, that powers thunderstorms. Thunderstorms are what produce tornadoes.

A typical tornado is 50 to 100 yards wide, but the very widest can exceed 2 miles in diameter. The largest tornado on record had a damage path 2.6 mile wide.

Yes, in fact some places have been hit twice in the same day. On April 3, 1974 the towns of Tanner, Capshaw , and Harvest, Alabama were first hit by an F5 tornado, followed by an F4 (listed by some as F5) tornado barely 30 minutes later. In some places it was impossible to tell which tornado damage what.

Tornadoes are most common in the Great Plains region of the United States, often referred to as "Tornado Alley." This area includes parts of Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, and Nebraska, where warm, moist air from the Gulf of Mexico meets cool, dry air from the Rocky Mountains, creating ideal conditions for tornado formation.

Tornadoes can hit Indiana in most months. However, the highest activity on average occur in May.

They have some similarties, but there are also major differences. Both hurricanes and tornadoes are violent storms with winds that rotate around a center of low pressure. Both can be deadly and very destructive. However, they operate on completely different scales. A hurricane is a large-scale self-sustaining storm system while a tornado is a small-scale vortex dependent on a parent thunderstorm. Hurricanes produce substantial flooding through rain and storm surge, while a tornado is entirely a wind phenomenon.

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Tornado damage has traditionally been rated on the Fujita scale. However, the United States and Canada now rate tornado damage on the similar Enhanced Fujita scale.

Tornado season in the Midwest typically occurs during late spring and early summer, from April to June. This is when warm, moist air from the south meets cooler air from the north, creating the conditions for tornadoes to form.

It varies. Some tornadoes stay in open fields or only impact trees and so cause no property damage. Weak tornadoes (EF0 and EF1) often cause damage in the tens of thousands of dollars, and on rare occasions in to the millions.

Strong to violent tornadoes (EF2-EF5) may cause damage ranging from the hundreds of thousands of dollars to the tens of millions.

Some of the worst tornadoes have caused damage in the hundreds of millions of dollars, with a handful topping $1 billion.

Yes, some people have survived tornadoes by seeking shelter in basements, storm shelters, or interior rooms of sturdy buildings. It is important to take tornado warnings seriously and have a plan in place to stay safe in the event of severe weather.

To date, no town in Texas has been hit by two F5 tornadoes. Worth mentioning, though is the town of Wichita Falls, Texas. It was hit by an F5 tornado on April 3, 1964 and an F4 tornado on April 10, 1979. The second tornado is the more famous of the two and is incorrectly believed by some to have been an F5.

To minimize damage caused by a tornado, it is important to have a plan in place, such as creating a tornado emergency kit and identifying a safe room or shelter in your home. Stay informed by monitoring weather alerts and seek shelter immediately when warnings are issued. Regularly maintain your property by securing loose outdoor items and reinforcing windows and doors to make them more resistant to high winds.

In the past 5 years tornadoes in the U.S. have killed 744 people and caused over $15 billion dollars worth of damage. Most of this ocurred as a result of the devastating tornadoes of 2011, which claimed 553 lives and cost approximately $10 billion.

Yes, tornadoes are most likely to form during the late afternoon and evening hours, typically between 3 pm and 9 pm. This time frame is when atmospheric conditions are most conducive to the formation of severe thunderstorms, which can spawn tornadoes.

Tornadoes do not bring fronts. Fronts, under the right conditions, create thunderstorms, which in turn can sometimes produce tornadoes. Tornadoes are most often associated with cold fronts, but are also not uncommon along dry lines. Warm fronts may also result in tornadoes, but it is fairly rare. Still other tornadoes may not be associated with any fronts at all.

Tornadoes often develop along cold fronts, but are not a direct product of them. Rather, tornadoes form from the thunderstorms that develop along some cold fronts. Dry lines have even more potential to produce tornadic storms, but are less common in most regions. In rarer cases, tornadoes may be associated with warm fronts. On spot that is conducive to the formation of tornadoes is Larko's triangle, an area between a warm front and cold front near where they meet at the center of a low pressure system.

No. Precipitation is water that falls from the sky in some form, such as rain, snow, or hail. A tornado is basically a violent wind storm. While tornadoes are usually accompanied by rain and often by hail, this precipitation is not directly related to the tornado itself.

Most tornadoes occur in so-called Tornado Alley because the weather "converges" there to make for a much higher probability that they will form in that location. Use the link below to see a map that "shows the weather" responsible for many of these beasts. This will tell you with a picture what would take a couple of paragraphs to explain.

a tornado is not a gas, it is a mixture of the three states of matter solid, liquid and gas.

Largely by coincidence, the most tornado-prone area in the world, the Great Plains is also a very flat area. However, the hills of Tennessee and northern Alabama are also quite prone to tornadoes.

Tornadoes are most common in spring and least common in winter. Since autumn and spring are transitional periods (warm to cool and vice versa) there are more chances of cooler air meeting with warmer air, resulting in thunderstorms.