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Page history last edited by PBworks 16 years, 1 month ago

tornado with debris

this is a tornado on the run.

Tornado

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This article is about the weather phenomenon. For other uses, see Tornado (disambiguation).

A tornado in central Oklahoma. The tornado itself is the thin tube reaching from the cloud to the ground. The lower part of this tornado is surrounded by a translucent dust cloud, kicked up by the tornado's strong winds at the surface

A tornado is a violently rotating column of air which is in contact with both a cumulonimbus cloud or, in rare cases, a cumulus cloud base and the surface of the earth. Tornadoes come in many sizes but are typically in the form of a visible condensation funnel, whose narrow end touches the earth and is often encircled by a cloud of debris.

Most tornadoes have wind speeds of 110 mph(177 km/h) or less, are approximately 250 feet (75 m) across, and travel a few miles (several kilometers) before dissipating. Some attain wind speeds of more than 300 mph (480 km/h), stretch more than a mile (1.6 km) across, and stay on the ground for dozens of miles (more than 100 km).^[1]^[2]^[3]

Although tornadoes have been observed on every continent except Antarctica, most occur in the United States.^[4] They also commonly occur in southern Canada, south-central and eastern Asia, east-central South America, Southern Africa, northwestern and southeast Europe, Italy, western and southeastern Australia, and New Zealand.^[5]

Tornado Damage Risk Assessment

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The series of tornadoes which struck the Oklahoma City area on May 3, 1999 were some of the most expensive tornadoes in U.S. history, causing over 1 billion dollars in damage and destroying over 2500 structures. With such a large impact, other urban areas in tornado alley were forced to wonder about their own susceptibility and preparation. The Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex is one such area. With over five million people, 1 million houses, and 60 thousand commercial structures, understanding the potential risks is valuable, indeed.

As part of the Spring 2000 severe weather planning season, The North Central Texas Council of Governments in cooperation with the National Weather Service in Fort Worth put together a Tornado Damage Risk Assessment. The project estimates the potential impact of a major tornado outbreak to the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex. Specifically, tornado damage paths from the May 3, 1999 Great Plains Tornado outbreak in Oklahoma are transposed across the Metroplex and a statistical profile of each impacted area is generated.

Five main scenarios are tested in which 53 of the damage paths are placed atop Metroplex geographical data, and centered as a group in five different locations. Additionally, 50 paths of the Moore tornado -- the costliest tornado in U.S. history to date -- are tested. Modern computer technology (GIS) is used to estimate structures, property, residents, employees, and traffic that would be in the path -- better defining the magnitude that the tasks of warning, rescue, and recovery would entail. By identifying such demographics and development, a general assessment of this region's susceptibility to a big tornado outbreak can be made.

We got this informasion at www.nctcog.com