What is Tornado? |
Characteristic of Tornadoes |
A violently rotating column of air touching the ground, usually attached to the base of a thunderstorm. It is often called nature’s most violent storm. Spawned from powerful thunderstorms, tornadoes can cause fatalities and devastate a neighborhood in seconds.
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Twisters are usually accompanied or preceded by severe thunderstorms and high winds. Hail is also common. Once a tornado hits the ground, it may live for as little as a few seconds or as long as three hours. The average twister is about 660 feet wide and moves about 30 miles an hour. Massive tornadoes can roar along as fast as 300 miles an hour.
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How Do Tornado Form?
Tornadoes form when warm, humid air collides with cold, dry air. The denser cold air is pushed over the warm air, usually producing thunderstorms. The warm air rises through the colder air, causing an updraft. The updraft will begin to rotate if winds vary sharply in speed or direction. As the rotating updraft, called a mesocyclone, draws in more warm air from the moving thunderstorm, its rotation speed increases. Water droplets from the mesocyclone's moist air form a funnel cloud. It grows and eventually and descends from the cloud. When it touches the ground, it becomes a tornado.
The Intensity of a TornadoUsing units F0 to F5, the Fujita scale measures a tornado's intensity by analyzing the damage the twister has done and then matching that to the wind speeds estimated to produce comparable damage. The United States now uses the EF (Enhanced Fujita) scale, which takes more variables into account when assigning wind speeds to a tornado.
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The Most Terrible TornadoThe most terrible tornato around the world occurred in the Manikganj district of Bangladesh on April 26, 1989.It resulted in the hugest number of loss of life; 1300 people were killed and an additional 12000 injured. The second most terrible tornado again occurred in Bangladesh in 1996, killing 700 people and destroying 30000 houses. The third most terrible tornado occurred in the states in 1925, killing 695 people in 3.5 hours of moving 352km.
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Fire Tornado
Fire tornado called as firenado. A firenado refers to a rapidly rotating column of flames above an intense fire, caused when air, dust, etc. is drawn into the fire from the surroundings and rises, creating a vortex.
It is well-known as “fire devil” and “fire whirls”. The process of its creation is pretty much the same as a tornado. Just mix very dry air with fire. As more and more hot, dry air rises in a column, the column starts to spin. Inside a column of hot air, particles in the center rotate much faster than the edges. As the air continues to rise and spin, it starts to draw in other objects around it. It picks up dirt, sticks, or fire. As the spinning air pulls fire into the rotation, the fire twist and turns with the column, forming one of the most terrifying phenomena known to humankind. |