Tornado

What do you think when you hear the word “Tornado”? You probably thinking about a massive
grey spiral wind stretched from the sky to the ground. Well you’re not wrong. A tornado is a fast
rotating column of air that forms the relationship between a cumulonimbus cloud or in the rare event of
a cumulonimbus base to the ground. Tornadoes come in many sizes but are typically in the form of a
visible condensation funnel, whose narrow end touches the earth and is often surrounded by a cloud of
debris.
These winds usually have speeds up to 180 km/hour, are about 80m across in diameter, and
travel several kilometers before it disappear. The most extreme tornadoes can attain wind speeds of
more than 480km/hour, have more than 3 kilometers diameter, and travel for more than 100
kilometers. For example, a tornado that appeared in the US on 1925. This tornado was called The Tri
State Tornado which is the deadliest tornado in US. 700 people were dead, more than 2.000 were
injured, and approximately 15,000 homes were destroyed. Scary isn’t it how nature can be really
destructive at times.
You may be wondering how can tornadoes even formed? Where do they come from? Let’s take
a look from this animation. They are formed inside a really big thunderstorm when cold dry air moving
from one direction into warm wet air from a different direction. Because the cold air is heavier, it slide
down under the warm air and pushes it up really fast and make a fast moving air rushing up and down
and finally create some sort of spinning thunderstorm. It keeps going until it formed what we call a
tornado.
Can current human technology prevent a tornado? Yes all that we have to do is warming the
cold air to be warmth enough so the tornado can’t form. But this method takes a lot of risk, money, and
probably wouldn’t work against bigger tornado. So the best thing we could do with the current
technology is detect tornadoes using the infrasound an hour before they form. There are several way to
reduce the damage caused by a tornado and most importantly could save lives.
First, when you know a tornado is coming, go inside your house or find a shelter, protect your doors
and window at all cost by closing and blocking them using a wooden plank or some sort because a
tornado could easily blow these off if they’re not secured.
Secondly, you need to start gathering emergency supplies including food, water, medications,
emergency light, batteries and such. Who knows if that tornado will stay around for a week or not?
Thirdly, Seek for a place with most protection as possible such as a basement or a room with no
windows in it. You can get under something sturdy such as a heavy table or workbench. If possible,
cover your body with a blanket, sleeping bag, or mattress, and protect your head with anything
available–even your hands. Avoid taking shelter where there are heavy objects, such as pianos or
refrigerators, on the area of floor that is directly above you.
That’s all information I could tell, hopefully with this information you could get a better
understanding of what a tornado is and what you can do to save your life if a tornado is about to strike
the place where you live