Tornadoes Unveiled: the Science and Impact of Nature's Fury

Take a moment to close your eyes and picture yourself in this situation. It is a late March afternoon. The skies are as dark as night and the wind has been gusting all day, but suddenly it has come to a halt. The sky has a greenish tint to it. You hear in the distance what sounds like a locomotive approaching closer. You are most likely about to witness a tornado. Since childhood, we as humans have always seemed to be fascinated by Tornado’s. I plan to answer some of those questions that so many have. In this essay I will present how Tornadoes are formed, where they are most likely to occur, and the extreme threats that accompany these giant storms. When we are younger, we see a tornado on the news or maybe even in person, and we always assume that a bad thunderstorm leads to a tornado. Speaking from personal experience, I never once stopped to think “what is the cause of this?”. You would think that upon seeing this terrifying, long, spinning cloud descending from a thunderstorm cloud, you would want to have all the information, but as I have learned, that is not quite the case. If we had done our research, we would have found some useful information. The leadup happens when horizontal spinning occurs inside of a storm as a result of the storm’s wind speeds changing. For a tornado to form, this must take place in a supercell storm. The key to a supercell storm is its rotating updraft. Going back to the situation given to you earlier, I laid out a situation where you would be imagining yourself coming in contact with a tornado. Luckily for all of us, if this had been the case in a real-life situation, a warning would have already come far in advance. We are lucky enough to live in a time where weather like this can be predicted far in advance. Thanks to Doppler Radars and brave individuals who work closely with forecasters, the patterns that are most commonly associated with the buildup of a possible supercell storm can be detected many hours in advance. The advances in this storm tracking technology have advanced rapidly over the last few decades, saving hundreds of lives. As of 2019, the United States population is roughly 328 million people. These people are spread out in states over the entire country. Unfortunately for about 17 million of these people, they have to live with the looming threat of a massive storm tearing though their city leaving a path of destruction that can destroy homes and lives. These people are living in an area known as “Tornado Alley”.

Tornado Alley spans over eight states: Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska, Missouri, Iowa, South Dakota, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio. Now some of these states only have small sections of them that are included in Tornado Alley. It spreads over about 500,000 square miles. It is said that about 30% of all tornadoes hit in this big stretch of land. You might ask yourself why do these storms hit this area of the country so much? The answer is very interesting. It is because the land in Tornado Alley is so incredibly flat. This flat land gives both warm air and cool air from different regions of the country to come down or up and meet each other, and when they meet, destruction usually ensues. The word “destruction” may seem a little dramatic. This is because many of the tornados are low damage storms that pop up just because of what I mentioned with the different airs meeting, but these low damage storms are made up for tenfold by the big boys that hit the area. According to ustornadoes. com, there have been 59 confirmed F5 tornadoes on record, and 22 of those have been in tornado alley. If you are confused on what I mean when I say “F5 tornado”, then my next topic will be important for you to read, as I will go over how these storms are classified and the danger that comes with them. Although a Tornado is really judged by its path of destruction, it is classified by its wind speeds.

The rankings go from an F0 which is a speed of 0mph – 65mph, and it goes as far as an F5 like the ones mentioned before. The F5 tornadoes are storms of 200mph or more. As you see the wind speeds, you can quickly tell that these storms are no joke. In fact, a tornado is one of the most dangerous, violent, and deadly storms that one can ever come in contact with. Since the 1950’s there have been well over 6,000 fatalities as results of tornadoes. That number of fatalities is dwarfed by the number of overall injuries that happen each year. Along with the cost of life and well-being, tornadoes rack up quite the bill wherever they hit. According to ustornadoes. com, The Insurance Information Institute reported that the average insured loss per year was $7. 78 billion between 1993 and 2012. In conclusion, Tornadoes are incredibly dangerous, costly, life altering, and interesting storms. The way they are formed is simple when we look at it closely, but nothing is simple about the destruction they bring. I hope that I have answered some questions you might have about these storms, and I hope that the reader will come away with information that might be useful to them in the future.