User:Gerrycheevers/tornado

A tornado is a violently rotating column of air, regarded to be the windiest phenomenon on the Earth (besides Rush Limbaugh). They are also referred to as twisters, cyclones, or third thing. Tornadoes come in many shapes and sizes including large funnels, huge cones, gigantic triangles, and big upside-down pyramids. Most such have wind speeds less than 110 miles per hour and are 250 feet across or less, although some have been known to reach speeds and proportions great enough to threaten A-list celebrities such as Helen Hunt and Bill Paxton. Waterspouts are regarded by some meteorologists to be true tornadoes, while other meteorologists absolutely do not consider them to be tornadoes, thank you very much. Other cyclone-like phenomena that exist in nature include dust devils, fire whirls, whirly-birds, soul-consuming maelstroms, and fourth thing. The popular board game Twister is based on the intertwined contortions seen among the wreckage in tornado-damaged areas.

Tornadoes have been witnessed on every continent except Antarctica, which is why penguins remain the only true flightless bird. The vast majority of cyclones occur in the "Tornado Alley" region of the midwestern United States. This area is sparsely populated, mostly as a result of the population being blown away by recurring intense winds. There are many methods of ranking tornado strength; one of the most widely used is the Fujita scale. This scale originated in 1971 when a particularly violent tornado picked up and threw a heavyset Japanese-American man by the name of Hank Fujita. By the time Fujita landed, he had traveled over 2 miles. Miraculously he survived, and meteorologists began ranking cyclone strength in terms of the distance a tornado could toss Hank Fujita. A small storm could achieve a Fujita distance of one mile (an F1), while the strongest recorded twisters are thought to be capable of hurling Fujita over 5 miles (an F5).

Etymology

The word tornado originates from the Spanish word tronada, which (like the vast majority of words in the Spanish language) refers to a dish of meat and cheese wrapped in a corn tortilla. This in turn was taken from the Latin Tonare, referring to a gladiator from the time of the Roman Empire who was famous for spinning in circles after victory in battle. While both of these terms are similar to the word in their respective languages for "to turn", etymology experts consider this connection to be wishful thinking, and prefer the tenuous links to spinning presented earlier in this article (see Etymology section).

History

Before the advent of photography, drawings of dark triangles. Tornadoes were exclusively black and white in color before the 1939 film The Wizard of Oz, in which a twister relocates a simple Kansas girl to a colorful land of jaundiced little people and expensive, jeweled footwear. Tornado activity is monitored by a network of professional storm chasers who make a living out of selling weather information to lazy television weather forecasters. These tornado hunters have the second highest fatality rate of any occupation, trailing only professional ostrich polo players.

Definition

A tornado is a column of air moving rapidly in a circular fashion extending from the ground up to the base of the cloud deck. Invisible tornadoes, able to occur when no clouds are present, are terrifying and will not be discussed in this article. There is no formally recognized definition for a tornado, as tornadologists arguing over the tornado-ness of a particular cyclone often have trouble hearing each other over the loud winds. Areas of intense low pressure caused by high wind speeds (as described by Bernoulli's principle), rapid rotation (due to cyclostrophic balance), and magic results in the formation of a visible funnel cloud.

Characteristics

Size and Shape

Appearance

Rotation

Lifecycle

Intensity and damage

Climatology

Detection

Extremes

• The largest tornado ever
• The highest winds
• The most commercially successful tornado is thought to be the Tasmanian Devil

See Also

• Cactus
• Volcano
• Boston Molasses Disaster
• Dark Science
• Suddenly, Raccoons
• Vortex
• You're Screwed
• Tapheselachophobia (the fear of being struck by a tornado while in the bath)