yego.me
💡 Stop wasting time. Read Youtube instead of watch. Download Chrome Extension

Tornadoes 101 | National Geographic


2m read
·Nov 11, 2024

Tornadoes are big funnel-shaped clouds that can rip through a community and leave a wake of destruction. They can form in seconds, change direction in a heartbeat, and their devastation can last a lifetime. Exactly how and why tornadoes occur is still a bit of a mystery, but an indication that one is forming is a wall cloud. Fast-moving winds roll air below into a horizontal vortex above opposing surface, similar to a spinning top.

Warm by the Sun, buoyant air near the ground begins to lift a section of the horizontal vortex into a vertical position. The vortex extends toward the ground as it picks up speed. Anything in its path can be ripped apart or thrown in the air. Upper-level winds tilt the rotating updraft called a mesocyclone. This allows a storm to keep growing as warm air is sucked into the storm away from the cool downdraft.

The vortex spins like a top, sometimes up to 300 miles per hour. While some tornadoes move slowly, others can travel over the ground at speeds of over 110 miles per hour. The widest tornado ever recorded, the May 2013 El Reno tornado in Oklahoma, was 2.6 miles across; that's wider across than Manhattan.

Research has allowed us to identify the essential ingredients needed for twisters to form in the U.S.: warm moist air, typically from the Gulf of Mexico; cool air, typically from Canada; and dry air, typically from the Rockies. When these air masses collide, they create the perfect conditions for a tornado. Nearly three-quarters of the world's tornadoes occur in the United States, and the peak season is between May and June. A majority touchdown in Tornado Alley, a section of the central United States.

However, tornadoes have been recorded in all 50 states and on every continent except Antarctica. Tornadoes are very dangerous, and you should never underestimate their power. The average time between a tornado warning and a strike is estimated at a mere 13 minutes, giving residents little time to seek shelter.

On average, tornadoes kill 60 people every year in the United States. The deadliest tornado in history was not in the United States, but a tornado that ripped through Bangladesh in 1989, killing an estimated 1,300 people. We measure the amount of damage to land and property using the EF scale, which ranks tornadoes on six different levels, from zero—a heavy breeze that can uproot crops—to level five—enough wind to pick up a house.

It's the desire to better understand them that sends scientists into the field year after year in search of answers that can hopefully save lives while putting themselves at risk.

More Articles

View All
Why the Electoral College Exists | Nat Geo Explores
Every four years it happens again. All trying to convince you that one candidate above all the rest has the experience, has got the right mix of stuff. “Join me to lead America!” This is crazy! But no matter what name you’re bubbling in, you’re not actual…
Are Psychedelics Microdosing The NEXT BIG Investment? - Why I'm Investing...| Kevin O'Leary
Hi everybody. As you know, I’ve been talking about microdosing psychedelics as a medicine for about a year now. I’ve been intrigued by this new development because it has the potential to become groundbreaking medicine. We don’t know that yet. So many com…
How to Make a Hero
[Music] Stanford University 1973, professor Philip Zimbardo conducts one of the most infamous experiments in the history of psychology, known as the Stanford Prison Experiment. This dark study of human behavior had student volunteers acting out the roles …
Donald Trump's Tour of His Manhattan Office
This office right now is all you, and it’s a little bit junky. Yeah, this I just got a few weeks ago. Houses from the Marine Corps, that’s the chair for the apprentice. Those are different things. Tom Brady’s Super Bowl helmet. Wow, this is Mike Tyson’s b…
The Global Economic Trends Post-Election | Explorer
Where do you see things now that we’re about a month in? I would actually distinguish between what we actually see in the markets and the story that Wall Street is telling. The story that Wall Street is telling is all optimistic. We’re going to have all …
What It Takes to Keep America Beautiful | Podcast | Overheard at National Geographic
When we got in and we were on the beach, the first thing you notice is the dramatic, you know, uh, sea stacks that from a distance just, you know, they look like mountain ranges almost. But they’re so close. In May 2022, National Geographic photographer S…