Tornado Facts

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Tornado Facts: What You Need to Know About the Spinning Air of Destruction
Most people know what a tornado is, but not all of them know what a tornado really is. There is more to it than just a swirling mass of wind that only scares the bejeezus out of you or leaves destruction on its wake.
What is a tornado?
Also known as twisters, cyclone and funnel, a tornado is a tube of air that touches both the ground and clouds and spins rapidly. For a vortex of wind to be called a tornado, it must touch the ground.
How is a tornado formed?
Tornado formation follows several steps and involves different factors.
It starts with large thunderstorms that happens in cumulonimbus cloud. When wind direction and speed changes at high altitude, air would swirl horizontally. When air rising from the ground pushes up on the funnel of swirling air and then tips it over, the funnel wood start to suck up more warm air from the ground. This causes the funnel to stretch and grow longer. When one end of it touches the ground, it officially becomes a tornado. …show more content…

It takes on the shape of a narrow funnel that stretches from the clouds to the ground. Giant tornadoes would look wider and bigger. Size and wind speed of a tornado can vary widely. In the United States, a typical tornado ranges from a few feet to around 500 feet wide, and spins at a speed from 65 to 250 miles per hour.
What are the different colors of a tornado?
Most tornadoes are colored Gray, but it can change, depending on the local environment. Some are almost invisible, while others can look red, black, white, blue or even green.
Do tornadoes rotate in a specific direction?
In the northern hemisphere, most tornadoes rotate counter-clockwise when viewed from above. In the southern hemisphere, it rotates in the opposite

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