What you should know about tornadoes

What you should know about tornadoes

Signs and safety tips

Tornadoes are nature’s most violent storms. Spawned from powerful thunderstorms, tornadoes can cause fatalities and devastate a neighborhood in seconds. A tornado appears as a rotating, funnel-shaped cloud that extends from a thunderstorm to the ground with whirling winds that can reach 300 miles (483km) per hour.

PanARMENIAN.Net - A tornado generally occurs when high winds within a low pressure system (such as a thunderstorm) cause water vapor in the air to condense in to a condensation funnel cloud. Many less severe tornadoes are not even visible to the human eye. Major tornadoes usually become more visible when the strong winds within the funnel lift up dirt and debris off the Earth’s surface. Tornadoes are generally classified as either a land spout (a tornado on land), a water spout (a tornado that forms over water) or a gustnado (a small tornado caused by a strong downburst of wind from a thunderstorm).

An average of 800 tornadoes are reported each year, resulting in 80 deaths and 1,500 injuries.

Tornados were once ranked by wind speed on the Fujita scale. It was upgraded to the Enhanced Fujita scale in 2007 and ranges from EF0 to EF5. An EF0 tornado may damage trees but not buildings, with winds ranging up to 85 mph (137 km/h). An EF5 tornado is devastating; winds exceed 200 mph (322 km/h), and buildings can be annihilated.

The word ‘tornado’ is believed to come from the Spanish language. There are two words that sound like the word tornado. The word for “thunderstorm” is tronada and the word for “to turn” is tornar. Some people have speculated that the word tornado was formed by combining these two words.

Initially, the tornado has a good source of warm, moist air flowing inward to power it, and it grows until it reaches the "mature stage". This can last anywhere from a few minutes to more than an hour, and during that time a tornado often causes the most damage.

Tornadoes can last from several seconds to more than an hour. Most tornadoes last less than 10 minutes.

The signs for a tornado are:

-Dark, often greenish sky

-Large hail

-A large, dark, low-lying cloud (particularly if rotating)

-Loud roar, similar to a freight train.

If you are under a tornado warning, you should seek shelter immediately. Most injuries associated with high winds are from flying debris, so remember to protect your head.

If you are in a building, go to a pre-designated area such as a safe room, basement, storm cellar, or the lowest building level. If there is no basement, go to the center of a small interior room on the lowest level (closet, interior hallway) away from corners, windows, doors, and outside walls. Put as many walls as possible between you and the outside. Get under a sturdy table and use your arms to protect your head and neck.

In a high-rise building, go to a small interior room or hallway on the lowest floor possible.

If you are outside with no shelter, take cover in a stationary vehicle. Put the seat belt on and cover your head with your arms and a blanket, coat or other cushion if possible.

If there are no available cars in the vicinity, lie in an area noticeably lower than the level of the roadway and cover your head with your arms and any cushion if possible.

The United States has the most tornadoes of any country, nearly four times more than estimated in all of Europe, excluding waterspouts. This is mostly due to the unique geography of the continent. North America is a large continent that extends from the tropics north into arctic areas, and has no major east-west mountain range to block air flow between these two areas.

The United States averages about 1,200 tornadoes per year. The Netherlands has the highest average number of recorded tornadoes per area of any country, followed by the UK, although those are of lower intensity, briefer and cause minor damage.

Tornadoes kill an average of 179 people per year in Bangladesh, the most in the world. Reasons for this include the region's high population density, poor construction quality, and lack of tornado safety knowledge. Other areas of the world that have frequent tornadoes include South Africa, the La Plata Basin area, portions of Europe, Australia and New Zealand, and far eastern Asia.

Tornadoes are most common in spring and least common in winter, but tornadoes can occur any time of year that favorable conditions occur. Spring and fall experience peaks of activity as those are the seasons when stronger winds, wind shear, and atmospheric instability are present.

Nowadays, most developed countries have a network of weather radars, which remains the main method of detecting signatures probably associated with tornadoes. In the United States and a few other countries, Doppler weather radar stations are used. These devices measure the velocity and radial direction (towards or away from the radar) of the winds in a storm, and so can spot evidence of rotation in storms from more than a hundred miles (160 km) away.

The world’s deadliest tornadoes:

The 1977 Madaripur-Shibchar Tornado. A deadly tornado hit Madaripur-Shibchar area in Bangladesh on April 1, 1977, which resulted to an estimated 500 deaths and hundreds of injuries. The tornado leveled the area, trees, homes and other structures were entirely damaged as the tornado passed through the villages.

The 1951 Comoro Tornado. The archipelago of Comoros of the eastern coast of Africa was struck by a deadly tornado in 1951. The twister started as a waterspout and gained strength and intensity as it struck land and killed an estimated 500 people. Other details concerning the incident are not known since the island nation was still under foreign rule.

The 1964 Narail-Magura Tornado. About 500 people either perished or went missing when a fatal tornado hit the cities of Narail and Magura in Bangladesh. Seven villages were devastated by the tornado’s wrath. 400 people from the village of Bhabanipur were never found and were presumed dead.

The 1851 Sicily Tornado. The tornado that struck Sicily started out as a waterspout. It is believed that an estimated 500 people died on that fateful day. There were theories about the tornado. One, that two waterspouts merged as they reached onshore and transformed into two massive and powerful tornadoes. Two, a multiple-vortex tornado was formed that destroyed the properties and lives along its path.

The 1951/1956 Valetta Tornado. One of the most deadly and disastrous tornados to ever occur in history was in Valetta, Malta. It claimed over 600 lives when it hit the Grand Harbor where the shipping armada was stretched in the bay, entirely destroying it as the great tornado moved along the path.

The 1973 Manikganj, Singair and Nawabganj Tornado. In 1973 the major areas of Manikganj, Singair and Nawabganj in Bangladesh were destroyed when a wide tornado hit their path. The whole large village of Balurchar was wiped out along with major parts of nine other towns. The confirmed death toll was at 681.

The 1925 Tri-State Tornado. The Tri-State Tornado remains to hold the record for being the worst and deadliest tornado to ever happen in the U.S. It hit the highest rating on the Fujita scale of F5. The colossal tornado lasted for 3.5 hours and generated 8 more tornadoes. The main tornadoes caused the most deaths in Missouri, Illinois, and Indiana, while the smaller ones struck Alabama, Kansas, Kentucky, and Tennessee which totaled to almost 750 deaths.

The 1996 Madarganj to Mirzapur Tornado. On May 13, 1996 an estimated 700 people perished in Bangladesh when a massive single tornado reached land from the areas of Madargani to Mirzapur, which includes the districts of Madarganj, Gopalpur, Kallhati, Basail, Shakipur, and Mirzapur in Jamalpur and Tangail. The incident left 30,000 homes totally damaged.

The 1969 East Pakistan Tornado. An estimated 660 people were killed and a total of 4,000 were injured on April 14, 1969 after a huge tornado struck Dhaka in East Pakistan where most people were living. That same day, another tornado hit Homna Upazila, also in Bangladesh where 223 people perished, thus giving a total of 883 deaths.

1989 The Daulatpur-Salturia Tornado. The most deadly tornado known to humankind is the April 26, 1989 Daulatpur-Salturia Tornado in Bangladesh. In just a matter of minutes, the horrific twister claimed the lives of 1,300 people and left 12,000 others injured. The towns were completely destroyed and 80,000 were left homeless.

Lusine Mkrtumova / PanARMENIAN.Net
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