Tornado
From Environmental Technology
Revision as of 20:33, 24 February 2006 by 66.99.149.227 (Talk)
A tornado is "a violently rotating column of air, pendant from a cumuliform cloud or underneath a cumuliform cloud, and often (but not always) visible as a funnel cloud." A vortex has to be in contant with the ground and cloud base to be classified as a tornado. The most damaging and/or deadly tornadoes come from supercells. Supercells are rotating thunderstorms with a well-defined radar circulation that is called a mesocyclone. Tornado formation is believed to be based mainly on things which happen in and around the mesocyclone.
