| Land Disasters |
| Earthquakes |
| Volcanoes |
| Floods |
| Tidal Waves |
| - |
| Atmospheric Disasters |
| Tornadoes |
| Blizzards |
| Lightning |
| Hurricanes |
| - |
| Basics |
| Clouds |
| Air Pressure and Weather fronts |
| - |
| Careers |
| Careers Related to Meteorology |
| - |
| Site Stuff |
| About Us |
| Sources |
| Guestbook |
| Message Board |
''Hot damp air trapped near the ground. Strong swirling winds. Those are the Ingredients of a tornado.'
This summary taken from Kenneth Chang of ABCNEWS.com can be used to describe the ingredients or the causes of a tornado.
But how do we make sense of this information? What does 'Hot damp air trapped near the ground' and 'strong swirling winds' help us in our understanding in tornadoes?
Tornadoes are one of those very bizzare, but yet awesome acts of nature that leave us very clueless. These natural disasters are formed on the southwestern side of a super cell thunderstorm. (Click here to learn more about thunderstorms.) A lot is yet to be known about these destructive forces, but a fair understanding of Tornaodo formation is in existence. The following taken from USA TODAY's The Weather Book by the reknown meteorologist Jack Williams states:
"Tornado researchers think a supercell's warm updraft and cool downdrafts are linked to the formation of the strongest tornadoes. In the same manner a tube of spinning air is lifted into the storm to form the mesocyclone(a rotating column of air), a small part of that tube is pushed and tilted into a vertical column under the storm. The exact mehtod is still unclear but when the two rotating columns of air connect a tornadoe often spins up."
|
Click on Diagram to Enlarge |
The 3 Steps Involved In Tornado Formation Step 1: A spinning tube of ir is formbed by low level wind shear, due to warm humid updrafts into the supercell and downdrafts of cool air. The spinning tube of air is considered the "Mesocyclone" as described in the diagram. Step 2: The mesocylone is pushed down due to the storm's downdraft (cool air from higher alititudes) and splits the mesocyclone in two columns, one spinning clockwise, the other spinning counterclockwise. Step 3: The updraft of warm air stretches the counterclockwise spinning column into the tornado. So what ever happend to that clockwise column of air? What happens is the clockwise column isn't stretched into a tornado like its counterclockwise coleague. The clockwise column might form a small funnel clud that circles the larger tornado.
|
Copyright 2001 Nate, and Kavi. This website was created using Dreamweaver 4, Microsoft FrontPage 2000, and Eversoft 1st page 2000 (free verstion). This website was created for Thinkquest.org, for a website competition. More information about this contest can be found here. We are team C0120505.