Category Archives: Definitions

Occasionally, a single storm will produce more than one tornado, either simultaneously or in succession. Multiple tornadoes produced by the same storm cell are referred to as a “tornado family”.[19] Several tornadoes are sometimes spawned from the same large-scale storm system. If there is no break in activity, this is considered a tornado outbreak (although the term “tornado … Continue reading

A tornado is not necessarily visible; however, the intense low pressure caused by the high wind speeds (as described by Bernoulli’s principle) and rapid rotation (due to cyclostrophic balance) usually causes water vapor in the air to condense into cloud droplets due to adiabatic cooling. This results in the formation of a visible funnel cloud or condensation funnel.[17] There is … Continue reading

A tornado is “a violently rotating column of air, in contact with the ground, either pendant from a cumuliform cloud or underneath a cumuliform cloud, and often (but not always) visible as a funnel cloud”.[14] For a vortex to be classified as a tornado, it must be in contact with both the ground and the cloud base. Scientists … Continue reading