The Science Behind Tornadoes

The United States is the tornado capital of the world and is home to the most tornadoes around the globe. Tornadoes are most common in the area that we call, "tornado alley", and this is a large area from South Dakota down south to Texas. In Connecticut, tornadoes are pretty rare, averaging two of these dangerous storms every year. April into May is the most common time of the year for tornadoes, and this is because there are many changes in the weather pattern, transitioning from Winter to Summer.

For the formation of tornadoes, you typically need the four ingredients for severe weather: shear, lift, instability, and moisture. Wind shear is the most important factor that plays into the creation of tornadoes. You either need directional shear or speed shear. Directional shear is when winds are coming out of different directions as you go up in height. Speed shear is a bit different, and it is when wind speed increases as you go up in height, coming out of the same direction. When there is wind shear, sometimes these winds begin to roll into a horizontal column of air. Once you get a strong updraft of air being transported from the ground to the atmosphere, that column of air becomes vertical. That is when a storm usually develops in this scenario. As the storm develops, it turns into a supercell thunderstorm much of the time. These supercell thunderstorms are seperate, discrete cells that are not part of a line of storms. Also, supercells are storms that rotate and spin. With both the vertical, rotating column of air and the supercell thunderstorm together, that may bring down a tornado from the storm cloud.

Now you know the science behind tornadoes.

CHECK OUT THE SCIENCE BEHIND PAGE HERE

#science