Tornados are formed when warm southern air combines with cold southern air. The word tornado comes from the word tornare which means "to turn". The word tornare is a Latin word. Most tornados stay on the ground for at least fifteen miles before rising up. A large group of tornadoes are called a tornado outbreak. Tornados that touch down on lakes or oceans are called waterspouts. They are called that because they suck up water into their swirling pools. A tornado is kind of like blowing up a balloon until it pops. It pops because the pressure inside the balloon is greater than the pressure outside the balloon. Some of the worst tornados that ever touched down and when are:

Great Hatchet -Mississippi- May,7,1840

Tri State - 1925

Operation Tornado - Flint, Michigan- 1953

Super Outbreak - April 3-4, 1974

Tornados can be gray,red, or brown, depending on the color of the dirt and mud that it picks up from the ground. Some people say tornados may look like an elephants trunk, a funnel, a Y, a spinning top, or a slithering snake. It looks like a funnel cloud coming down from a cumulonimbus cloud, which is a huge thundercloud. When looking for a funnel cloud radars look for a blob of color that is in a "S or 6 shape." Also the worst tornado that can hit is a F5. Tornados today are classified on the Fujita- Pearson scale, which tells maximum speed, path length, and path width.

A place many tornadoes occur is in "Tornado Alley", which is in Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, and Missouri. An average of thirty tornados occur in the British Isles per year. About one percent of the United States thunderstorms produce tornadoes, from around 700 to 1150 per year. Seventy-nine percent of them are weak, twenty percent are strong, and one percent are very violent tornados. Most tropic tornadoes are very weak as waterspouts.

A few very strange things tornadoes are able to pick up and do are:

-Drive a piece of straw through a board

-Pick up branches, boards, stones, cars, and people

-Rip off roofs and destroy houses

-suck up a pond and put frogs and fish down over a kilometer away

- pick up a sleeping baby and put her gently back down

Some of the worst tornados that hit the Chicagoland area is the tornado of April 21, 1967. It was an F4 tornado and was very strong. It had winds of 200mph and stayed on the ground for at least 16 miles. It moved through Palos Hills, Oak Lawn, Hometown, Evergreen Park, and the south side of Chicago to Lake Michigan. Over 33 people were killed and over 500 were injured. Another tornado occurred on July 18, 1997, it was an F1 tornado. It was confined to DuPage County. Near the communities of Winfield and Wheaton. It moved northwest and southeast. It was on the ground for 3 miles from Cantigny to southeast of Danada Shopping Center at Naperville Road.

Something that people get really confused about are the terms "tornado watch" and "tornado warning". There is a difference. A "tornado watch" means there is a chance for a tornado but not to be alarmed because one was not spotted. On the other hand a "tornado warning" means there was a tornado spotted in your area and you should seek shelter immediately!

Some Tornado Pictures