Tornadoes, twisters, dust devils, whirlwinds, and waterspouts; these are all different names for tornadoes. So what is a tornado? A tornado is a short lasting, dangerous and destructive storm which is basically a wind funnel. The roaring tornado winds can reach up to 500 km/h and can pick up trucks and throw them in the air, tear apart buildings and even snap trees. They can be very small or very big. They might last a minute or maybe hours. They might travel a few feet or hundreds of miles. They destroy everything in their path. Tornadoes are actually wild wind funnel that look just like a giant elephant trunk. The funnel reaches the ground and sucks everything in its path. Infact the biggest dangers of a tornado is getting hit by something in it. They can move across its path at the speeds of 60 km/h. The winds in a tornado can only be measured by radar not traditional equipment. They have the fastest winds ever recorded on Earth and they can whip something sixteen times stronger than a hurricane.

What Causes a Tornado 

A tornado is always formed by a super cell. A super cell is a storm which turns into a tornado and consists of cumulonimbus clouds. A super cell is formed when a warm and moist mass of air lies next to the ground. This air is trapped my warm and dry air, but since the warm air is lighter than cold air the mass of air next to the ground pushes on the mass of air trapping the air. When this air is released cold air cools it as it goes up. When the warm, moist air cools it condenses forms into a cumulonimbus cloud and a storm occurs. Only few of the storms that are formed this way actually turn into a super cell. Now let’s find out how a super cell turns into a tornado. Some of the times the super cell blows air down to the ground and it spin forming a funnel, but sometimes warm air goes up in a straight layer and the air starts spinning downwards. Tornadoes get their enormous amount of energy from their super cell, but very small amount of energy from the super cell is actually used in the tornado.