Tornado- ANAtural Disaster

A tornado is a violently spinning column of air or vortex. It can consist of one vortex or multiple vortices within the one vortex. They are said to be the most destructive storm on Earth. Tornadoes are very unpredictable and can develop any time throughout the year but peak tornado season is normally April through June. However, tornadoes were documented to have developed in Texas in December 2006.

The Hydrologic Cycle and Wind

If it were not for the hydrologic cycle there would be no moisture in the air to form clouds. The process begins with the Earth’s water evaporating into the atmosphere. The moist air is lifted, cools then water vapor condenses and forms clouds. Precipitation returns to the Earth in the form of precipitation. Precipitation can fall as rain, sleet, or snow.

Wind direction affects the temperature and moisture conditions (Lutgens & Tarbuck, 2014, p. 436). High pressure systems and diverging winds cause dry conditions while low pressure systems and converging winds lead to precipitation.

Thunderstorms and Tornadoes

Tornadoes usually are spawned from supercell thunderstorms although supercells do not always generate tornadoes. Thunderstorm cells are very complex, unstable formations. Moist air gets trapped beneath a layer of cold, dry air. As the air becomes unstable, cumulus clouds begin to build up vertically sometimes as high as the tropopause. The clouds get to a point where they lose their buoyancy and this updraft subsides. If no vertical windshear is present the cloud will spread out like an anvil. If a vertical windshear exists then the anvil can spread out in a downshear direction. Updrafts can also penetrate the tropopause before collapsing. The droplets in the cloud can eventua...

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...able then one should take cover in the innermost part of the building or house.

Works Cited

Forbes, G. S., & Bluestein, H. B. (2001). Tornadoes, tornadic thunderstorms, and photogrammetry: A review of the contributions by t. t.. Bulletin Of The American

Meteorological Society, 82(1), 73.

Lutgens, F. & Tarbuck, E. (2014). Foundations of earth science. (7th ed.) Upper Saddle River,

NJ: Pearson Education

National Weather Service. (2013). Top ten deadliest tornadoes in texas (since 1900). Retrieved from: http://www.srh.noaa.gov/ama/?n=top10_tornadoes

Ramon, A. (2011). Texas Tech's tornado simulator leads world in wind research. Retrieved from: http://www.kvue.com/news/Texas-Techs-tornado-simulator--121398254.html

Texas Almanac. (n.d.) Texas is tornado capital. Retrieved from:

http://www.texasalmanac.com/topics/environment/texas-tornado-capital