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A tornado is a violently rotating column of air in contact with the surface and a cumuliform cloud base. Tornado formation is caused by the stretching and aggregating/merging of environmental and/or storm-induced vorticity that tightens into an intense vortex. There are various ways this may come about and thus various forms and sub-forms of ...
Tornado Alley, which covers portions of the Great Plains and Midwest, experiences “a higher propensity for tornadic development” because all the key ingredients to form one are found there ...
For a tornado to form in this manner, a rear-flank downdraft enters the center of the mesocyclone from the back. Cold air, being denser than warm air, is able to penetrate the updraft. The combination of the updraft and downdraft completes the development of a tornado. Tornadoes that form in this method are often violent and can last over an ...
Tornadoes can form any time the conditions are right. They take many shapes, but they all start the exact same way. ... The main ingredients to a tornado are warm air and cool air. Inside the ...
However, tornadoes are capable of both much shorter and much longer damage paths: one tornado was reported to have a damage path only 7 feet (2.1 m) long, while the record-holding tornado for path length—the Tri-State Tornado, which affected parts of Missouri, Illinois, and Indiana on March 18, 1925—was on the ground continuously for 219 ...
The ingredients necessary to form a tornado — wind shear, lift, instability and moisture — are well known and allow forecasters to put out reliable tornado watches but, beyond that, much ...
A clear slot can be observed to wrap around a tornado or form away from a tornado in the shape of a horseshoe. This clearing is most likely the formation of the hook echo region associated with tornado formation. [2] An RFD originating in dry air warming adiabatically can produce warmer observations out of the RFD at the surface.
Some of the most notorious twisters in U.S. history were wedge tornadoes, including the EF5 that leveled Joplin, Missouri, on May 22, 2011, and the El Reno tornado, which was a jaw-dropping 2.6 ...