Tornadoes

By: Gigi, Neha, Shanu, and Anna

 What is a Tornado?
Tornadoes are violently rotating columns of air, extending
from a thunderstorm, which are in contact with the ground.

A tornado forms inside a thunderstorm, warm and humid air

rises while cool air falls. This creates spinning currents inside
the cloud which start horizontal and turn vertical when they
drop down from a cloud creating a tornado.

○ Tornadoes are an air-based phenomenon.

○ Tornadoes cause an average of 70 fatalities and 1,500
injuries in the U.S. each year.
○ The strongest tornadoes have rotating winds of more
than 250 mph.
○ Tornadoes can be more than one mile wide and stay on
the ground for over 50 miles.
○ Tornadoes can last from mere minutes to several hours.
 The Design Process
Due to time and resource constraints, a
prototype or final model was not able to
be created.
Using the understanding and
information gathered, a design sketch was
created which includes the important
concepts of a tornado and shows how a
tornado works.
The first step was breaking down the
problem to understand what needed to
be made. To do this we wrote down a list
of what needed to be included:
To generate and select concepts, we first
had to understand the concepts of a
tornado. Concepts are important to
understand because it helps to have the
main components of the model and to
apply it into the making of the model.
We also found information about
tornadoes by formulating questions
connected to the understanding of the
problem. This information was put into
a document:
The Thinking Process

Our First Idea (wouldn’t work)

Generating ideas
Our Second Idea (wouldn’t work)
 Our Design Sketch
The main components of this model that demonstrate how a
tornado works are:
- The fan. The fan produces RFD (Rear Flank
Downdraft) which is a wind that wraps around the
backside of a tornado. It sustains the rotation of the
tornado and produces damaging winds.
- Slits in the cardboard. This produces inflow, which is
warm moist air that gives energy to the tornado and
sustains its rotation.
- Dry ice. The dry ice imitates the cold air needed to
produce a tornado.
- Warm water. The warm air imitates the warm air
needed to produce a tornado.
- ‘Thunderstorm cloud’. The base of a thunderstorm
cloud is where a tornado is formed.
- Debris Cloud. While the tornado is moving, it picks
up debris from the ground. This debris forms a visible
cloud around the base of the tornado.
Information

The entire document with information: Information

Document
Our Poster
This poster was created to present
the main information to the
audience. We were planning to
make more posters explaining
what to do during a tornado and
what effects tornadoes have to a
population and economy.