Interesting Facts on Tornadoes

Each year about a thousand tornadoes touch down on the ground in America, on average 800 more than any other country in the world!

In America’s southern states, the peak season for tornadoes is most often between March and May, whereas in the north-most states, the peak season is late June through August.

A tornado, also known as a twister, is a rotating, funnel-shaped cloud that extends from a large thunderstorm to touch the ground.

They are the fastest winds on Earth and can whirl up to 300 miles per hour.

These rotating thunderstorms, also known as mesocyclones or supercells, birth tornadoes when a current of cool, moist air from the downdraft of the supercell meets with a current of warm air from the supercell’s updraft.

This causes the rotating wall cloud to form and “touch down” on the ground below.

These mesocyclones are well-defined and easily detectable via Doppler radar, meaning that a twister can be predicted by a meteorologist.

Twisters can also be defined by the weather characteristics that occur before the initial touchdowns, including severe gale-force winds, lightning, flash floods, and hailstones that can be the size of a grapefruit!