Spring is tornado season in the US, and the time to get up close and personal with these dangerous and fascinating atmospheric phenomena
Dorothy, the protagonist of “The Wizard of Oz”, is transported to this magical world by a tornado that rips her entire house off the ground. “We’re not in Kansas anymore,” he tells his puppy Toto as he lands. It is not by chance that the author begins the narrative there, since this North American state is located in the middle of the famous “tornado alley”.
A tornado is a tall, narrow, violently rotating column of air. The tornado’s column of air extends from a storm to the ground. Because the wind is invisible, it’s hard to see a tornado unless it forms a condensation funnel made up of water droplets, dust, and debris, and that’s just the image we have of them.
Tornadoes occur in many parts of the world, including Australia, Europe, Africa, Asia and South America. New Zealand experiences around 20 tornadoes a year, and there are high concentrations of tornadoes in countries like Argentina and Bangladesh. However, it is in the United States that they became famous and reached the imagination of the entire planet.
tornado alley
Tornado Alley in the USA
Tornado Alley (tornado alleylisten)) is a loosely delimited band that runs through the central United States from north to south, and was first used in 1952 as the title of a research project to study storms in Texas, Louisiana, Oklahoma, Kansas, South Dakota , Iowa and Nebraska. Dominated by vast plains, far from the sea and subject to major storms, this part of the country is a tornado kitchen.
The biggest and strongest tornado in recorded history is considered to be the so-called “El Reno”, which occurred in Oklahoma in May 2013. It would have grown to a width of 4.2 km and the winds reached a speed of 486 km/h.
Tornado violence is measured using the Fujita scale. Like the Richter scale that measures the intensity of earthquakes, the Fujita scale is used to rate the intensity of tornadoes, based primarily on the damage they cause to buildings and vegetation.
The Fujita scale for tornadoes
The Fujita scale ranges from 1 to 5. A level F0 tornado can uproot some bushes, rip shingles off roofs and take out plastic chairs. Tornadoes of F3 intensity rip off roofs and exterior walls of houses, uproot all trees in their path and are capable of moving large vehicles such as tractors and buses. The F5 rating is reserved for tornadoes that destroy cars and launch them hundreds of meters away, can flatten brick buildings and turn pebbles or splinters of wood into dangerous projectiles.
Tornadoes do not usually occur in isolation, but rather in “outbreaks” that bring dozens of tornadoes at the same time. The most destructive of these outbreaks occurred on March 18, 1925, and was called the “Three States” as its extent destroyed large swaths of Tennessee, Kentucky, and Indiana on the same day, although they were also recorded in Alabama and Kansas. The outbreak spawned at least 12 F5-force tornadoes, according to estimates, as this scale was not used at the time. In total, 751 people died and more than 2,298 were injured.
About 1,200 tornadoes hit the United States each year. In this country they have a Storm Prediction Center dependent on the weather agency NOAA, which constantly monitors for conditions favorable for tornadoes. A tornado watch means you need to seek shelter right away.
How are tornadoes formed?
The truth is that it is not yet fully understood how tornadoes form. The most destructive are formed from huge electrical storms called supercells within which the air spins forming a mesocyclone. Once the mesocyclone begins to spin, temperature differences between the updrafts and downdrafts can increase this spin, forming a funnel outside the cloud, similar to the vortex that forms when a sinkhole is drained. This condensation funnel is made up of water droplets and extends downward from the base of the storm. If the funnel is not in contact with the ground, a funnel cloud forms, but when it touches the ground, the wind accelerates above 300 km/h and the tornado is produced.
Are there tornadoes in Spain? The center of the Iberian Peninsula has extensive plains, but being a much smaller landmass than the plains of the US, our tornadoes are also more modest. In Spain there are about 22 tornadoes or waterspouts per year. One of the most notorious occurred in the province of Palencia in 1999 and recorded gusts of up to 130 km/h, destroying pine trees over 15 meters high in its path.
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