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Connor Benedetto

English 8

Mrs. Schinzing

17 March 2020

Tornadoes

Did you know that there are three different types of tornadoes? I will be explaining all

three of them in detail and the features of them. The three are: Standard Tornadoes, Fire

Tornadoes, and Waterspouts.

Standard Tornadoes are the most common and known of the three tornadoes. It is also

one of the most dangerous tornadoes. If you ever see a tornado in real life? By just looking at the

funnel you would be able to tell how dangerous and severe it is. If the funnel is wide and tall,

that means it has more width to do more damage to stuff and lasts way longer then if the funnel

is not wide. If the funnel is skinny and tall it's not a very dangerous one and does weird damage

to the places around it. For example, if there were three houses in a row next to each other and

the tornado is going straight toward the middle house, it would only destroy the middle house

and the other two houses would still be standing. But if it is a wide funnel in the same

circumstance, then it would destroy all three of the buildings. The average normal tornado lasts

about fifteen minutes. The wide, more rare tornadoes can last up to an hour.

The tornado’s wind speed also depends on the size of the funnel. The average tornado’s

windspeed is about 200 mph. Wide funnel tornadoes average wind speed is roughly 320 mph.

So, the bigger the funnel the more dangerous and high-speed winds of the tornado. When the
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tornado first starts forming its invisible to the naked eye. The way we start to see it is once it

starts the tornado is picking up dust and object around it into its funnel.

For a tornado to form it needs warm and moist air, and cold dry air mixed with

crosswinds. If all those conditions are there, that’s what will form a tornado. A thunderstorm that

has a chance of there being a tornado is called a tornadic thunderstorm. The United States of

America, have the most tornadic thunderstorms and actual tornadoes in the world.They occur

mainly in the south and mid-west.

There's a lot of tornadoes in the center of the United States of America, and they call it,

(Tornado alley). Most tornado sightings happen from March to July. During these months there

are an average of five tornadoes a day. In the United States, Tornadoes can move miles when

fully formed. During a tornado, while its moving there are lightning bolts flashing inside of the

tornado.

Most deaths from Tornadoes aren’t from them being sucked up in the funnel and getting

thrown, it's from the big or small objects flying around in the funnel at the high speeds that it’s

going. Even small objects, if thrown from a tornado and hit a house it could still tear down the

wall or put a big hole in it. The average tornado funnel height is between 800 to 2,000 ft. The

average width at the base of the tornado is 600-900ft. The updraft is what fuels the thunderstorm

and keeps it going.

The stronger the updraft the stronger the thunderstorm, and the more likely of there

being a tornado. There is a more dangerous kind of tornado then one just with a wide funnel, it's

called a multi-vortex tornado. These tornadoes are very rare, yet very dangerous. It forms when

there are three funnels close to each other, being formed by the one thunderstorm.
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The way people are alerted to the dangers of the tornado, is by something called the f-

scale. The f-scale just tells the people how long and dangerous the tornado is, F1 being the least

dangerous and F5 being the most dangerous tornadoes ever. Most tornadoes form between 3pm-

9pm. If weathermen see a tornadic thunderstorm, this is when they use the f-scale. Tornadoes

from f1-f4 go 20-40mph on the ground, but the f5 can go up to 60mph.

Meteorologists study the weather to try to predict whenever a tornado might occur, so

then they can tell people where and when most likely it would happen. They broadcast a tornado

warning on the news. The best tool that meteorologists use to this day to try to find tornadoes

before they happen is called a doppler radar. A doppler radar records the location and strength of

the storms. This makes it much simpler to tell the newscasters what level on the f-scale the

tornado would be. Doppler radars work by sending out radio waves from an antenna. The radar

can also detect rotation in the clouds. An Optical Transient Service is a government agency that

is responsible for observing and to forecast weather of these tornadoes.

The second kind of tornado is called a waterspout. A waterspout is a cloud-filled wind.

Waterspouts can only form from a cumulus cloud. Waterspouts are formed when a tornadic

thunderstorm is occuring over a large body of water. People think that the water inside of the

waterspout is from the actual water it is over. This is not the case, the way the waterspout

actually gets water is from the condensation of the cumulus cloud.

The waterspout is the least dangerous out of the three types of tornadoes. They have the

same concept as normal tornadoes but are always smaller and less intense. The worst kinds of

waterspouts are called, (Tornadic Waterspouts). The most common kinds of waterspouts are

called, fair-weather waterspouts, these kinds are barely dangerous. Fair-weather waterspouts are

formed during a not fully formed tornadic thunderstorm.

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For either one of these waterspouts to form there needs to be a lot of humidity and a big

body of water. Waterspouts are most common in tropical and sub-tropical waters. There are five

different stages for a waterspout to form: Dark spot, Spiral pattern, Spray ring, Nature vortex,

and finally decay. The largest waterspout to ever be seen had the diameter of 330ft and lasted up

to an hour long. There can be twin waterspouts which are slightly more dangerous but still not

even close to the dangers of a standard.

The average waterspout is around 50 meters, or 165ft in diameter, with wind speeds of

80 kilometers per hour. But the largest waterspouts can have the diameter of 100 meters, or

330ft, and can last up to an hour. Waterspouts are more dangerous to marine life then humans.

When fish get sucked up into the waterspout, there isn't enough water in the waterspout for the

fish to be able to breath. Waterspouts don’t affect humans nearly as much because they normally

form far out into a lake or large bodies of water, so very rarely will any humans encounter a

waterspout.

Tornadic waterspouts almost have the same amount of dangers as the normal tornado

does, for them to even occur it must be a tornadic thunderstorm. Tornadic waterspouts are pretty

much normal tornados that form overtop of water or land tornadoes that moved from land to big

plots of water. Fair-weather waterspouts don’t really form from thunderstorms, they form from

the cumulus cloud and don’t create the funnel going downwards, the fair-weather waterspout

gets made from starting at the water, going upward from the condensation of the cumulus cloud.

By the time a fair-weather waterspout is visible it is already in its maturity state, the only

thing that this kind of waterspout does is slightly damage marine life and cause small windy

conditions. This kind of waterspout pretty much stays in place and most of the time forms at the

middle of the lake or large body of water it is on. It is possible for the waterspouts to reach land
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though. If this ever happens the national weather service sets a tornado warning. Once the

waterspout reaches land it can cause a lot of property damage and possibly injure a lot of people,

this very rarely happens though. But if it ever reaches land, the time shortens a lot because they

can't be on land for long and don’t get as much water as they need.

The third and most destructive kind of tornado out of the three, is called a fire

tornado/firenado. Firenados have only been discovered recently compared to the others. There

have not been many actual times this has been seen in real life. They are very rare to form but the

dangers and effects are like no other tornadoes. For a firenado to form there needs to be a very

big fire, like a forest fire. Then a normal tornado must happen over top of it which causes the fire

to get caught up in the funnel of the normal tornado. This still picks up objects and throws them.

They can be very big or small, depending on the tornado on the f-scale. They can also spread

fires way farther out and start a lot of damage. It also creates a lot of damage because the

firenado shoots little ashes out of the top of it and creates other fires around it. Fire tornadoes

aren't very big and don’t last very long but the fire spread causes a lot of damage and makes

overall the most destruction.

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Works Cited

Benedetto, Chris. Bachelor in Earth Science. Answered interview questions. 2/27/20

Daley, Jason, “Smithsonian Magazine”. 8/1/18. www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/science-

behind-california-fire-tornado-18096803/ . Accessed 2/9/20.

Gullo, Arthur, “The Power of Nature”, Tornadoes. 2015.

Harris, William, “How Fire Tornadoes Work”, How Stuff Works.

https://science.howstuffworks.com/nature/natural-disasters/fire-tornado4.htm . Accessed 2/13/20

Wired, “Scientist Explains How a Fire Tornado Forms”, Wired. 8/28/19.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TvMwBaFzOYo . Accessed 2/18/20

“Waterspout”. https://www.nationalgeographic.org/. Accessed 2/27/20