What hazards are involved in a tornado?
447507
The main hazards of a tornado include extremely high winds, flying debris, and sometimes the associated weather phenomena, such as large hail and heavy rain. The extremely high winds pick up debris, causing seemingly harmless things such as small pieces of styrofoam or wood to become lethal projectiles. The winds can also cause extensive structural damage. The storms associated with tornadoes also bring hazards such as baseball-sized hail and intense rain around the vicinity of the tornado.
608754
I love to watch them on tv. I love a thunderstorm near my house. Never been in a tornado or hurricane but they look really scary on tv. I think I would be very scared if I had to go thru a tornado of hurricane. We had a tropical storm one time with winds up to 70 mph. It was awful and lasted all night. I was so worried about the trees crashing on my house. They didn't but the ones in the far back fell. The house shook.
481590
Tornadoes are created from severe Thunderstorms. They occur when a high pressure front meets head on with a low pressure front. No where is this more evident than in our mid-west, otherwise known as tornado alley, from the Canadian provinces to the Gulf of Mexico. Here, the Siberian express from Canada meets the warm tropical front from the Gulf of Mexico.
283899
An outbreak of strong convection occurred on 29 March 1998 across southern Minnesota and central Wisconsin. These storms produced several tornadoes, most notably at Lismore/Wilmont/Leota F2) in southwestern Minnesota and at Comfrey/Hanska/Courtland (F3/F4, 1 fatality) and at Nicollet/St. Peter/Le Center (F3, 1 fatality) in southcentral Minnesota. This marked one of only seven occurrences of tornadoes in Minnesota during the month of March. A tornado was also reported near Maxville, Wisconsin. In addition, large hail was reported with these particular storms (hailstone diameters up to 4.5 inches in Minnesota and 1.75 inches in Wisconsin). \n\nSynoptic conditions: A surface low was deepening in extreme southeastern South Dakota, with a warm front extending eastward across southern Minnesota into central Wisconsin. The air mass within the warm sector to the south of this front was very unstable, as surface temperatures reached around 80 F along with dewpoints in the low 60's F. The warm front served as the low-level focus for convective activity. \n\nStrong middle and upper-level winds were also advancing over the region -- wind profiler data at Wood Lake, MN and Blue River, WI showed 50 knot winds as low as 2.5 - 3.0 km, as well as strong low to mid-level wind shear (veering and increasing speed with height) that aided in the development of supercell convection. \n\nNear St. Peter, Minnesota, a 6-year-old boy was killed when the van he was in was thrown off the road and he was tossed 150 yards. In St. Peter, bricks littered the streets, storefronts were smashed, and the remains of one store was spread throughout a 6 block area. Debris from there was dropped onto St. Paul, 55 miles away. Many buildings at Gustavus Adolphus College were damaged. At a Le Center trailer park, the manager, Bob Bock, ran from trailer to trailer, alerting the residents, and directing them to the trailer park's concrete storm shelter. About half the trailers were destroyed, but none of the residents were seriously injured. At least 36 other people were injured during a rash of 7 tornadoes that swept through southern Minnesota. The towns of St. Peter, Le Center, and Comfrey were hardest hit.
198999
I don't think tornados have a preference. It seems they like either one, especially if there's a trailer park! Seriously though, they can happen anywhere when cold air meets warm air. That's all I know about how they're formed. \nBut, from watching the weather reports about tornadoes in "Tornado Alley", I've noticed it doesn't matter if areas are incorporated or unincorporated. However, if it is unincorporated, there's definitely a lot less damage to structures (buildings). But even in an unincorporated area, buildings can be smashed.
1172480
Tornado paths range from 100 yards to one mile wide and are rarely more than 15 miles long. They can last from several seconds to more than an hour, however, most don't exceed 10 minutes. Most tornadoes travel from the southwest to northeast with an average speed of 30 mph, but the speed has been observed to range from almost no motion to 70 mph
502971
i believe if you take two two liter pepsi bottles and fill one with water and tape the openings together so it looks like a giant egg timer when you turn one bottle upside down and swirl it a little it will cause a tornado effect.
1003093
Earthquakes= not bad for me, because I don't live in a danger zone.\nFloods= don't scare me, I can swim strongly and pack up all my valuable possesions (pats DS Lite lovingly) in about two minutes.\nWildfires= again, not in the danger zone.\nSo that leaves tornados, because they strike so quickly and you never know how bad they will be. Where I live, from about last week till the end of September, everyday merrits a "tornado watch" (or is it warning? Which ever one is worse). They can take out whole sections of a town in seconds and you can't be prepared for them. Luckily, I have a deep basement so when they come, I just go down in the nasty, windowless hole and wait 'em out.
499353
The first thing that has to happen is that you have to have two different patches of air moving toward each other from opposite directions, with a warm one on the bottom and a cool one on the top. \n\nThe next thing that happens is that the warm air rises. After the warm air goes up, the cool air comes down to take its place. So now the warm and cool patches of air are moving side to side and up and down. So they make a spinning patch of air along the ground.\n\nUsually when a tornado is starting, it happens during a storm. So there's lots of air moving around already. If a draft of air from the storm comes along close to the ground and then moves upwards (called an "up-draft"), it will pull the spinning air upwards.  Then comes the part that scientists don't understand quite as well. So far the spinning air is still really really wide. Somehow it gets pulled in really tight so that it makes a tornado.
860876
Well winds in a tornado can reach speeds of 300 mph, this in itself is enough to cause total destruction.\n\nPressure is also lowest at the center of a hurricane, or any other low-pressure system. The air is being pulled up away from the ground and thus the pressure is low.
340248
Water\nBlankets\nClothing\nFirst Aid Kit\nSpecial Items (for babies & elders)\nToiletries, Hygiene items, Moisture wipes\nFlashlight(s), batteries\nRadio (battery operated) and NOAA weather radio\nCash (Banks & ATMs may not be available)\nKeys\nToys, books, games (for kids)\nImportant documents (in a waterproof container - insurance, medical records, bank account numbers, Social Security cards, etc.)\nTools (keep a set handy during the storm)\nVehicle fuel tanks filled\nPet care items (proper identification, immunization records, medications; ample supply of food & water; cage or carrier; muzzle and leash)
362562
Well, to avoid tsunamis and typhoons/hurricanes you need to be in a landlocked country. To avoid tornadoes you need something fairly mountainous. As for earthquakes, you need to avoid fault lines. I would guess somewhere in Germany or thereabouts.
570708
Tornado is the most violent of all storms. A tornado, sometimes called a twister, consists of a rapidly rotating column of air that forms under a thundercloud or a developing thundercloud. Tornado winds swirl at speeds that may exceed 300 miles (480 kilometers) per hour. A powerful tornado can lift cattle, automobiles, and even mobile homes into the air and destroy almost everything in its path. Fortunately, most tornadoes are relatively weak, and only a few are devastating. \nScientists use the word cyclone to refer to all spiral-shaped windstorms that circulate in a counterclockwise direction in the Northern Hemisphere or in a clockwise direction in the Southern Hemisphere. The term cyclone comes from the Greek word for circle. Cyclones come in many sizes. Among the largest such storms are hurricanes and typhoons, which may reach 250 miles (400 kilometers) across. \nMost tornadoes are small, intense cyclones. On rare occasions, the winds whirl in the direction opposite that of a cyclone--for example, clockwise in the Northern Hemisphere. \nMost tornadoes have damage paths less than 1,600 feet (500 meters) wide, move at less than 35 miles (55 kilometers) per hour, and last only a few minutes. Extremely destructive twisters may reach 1 mile (1.6 kilometers) in diameter, travel at 60 miles (100 kilometers) per hour, and blow for more than an hour. \nThe United States has the highest incidence of tornadoes in the world. Most of these storms occur in a belt known as Tornado Alley that stretches across the Midwestern and Southern states, especially Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska, and Iowa. However, tornadoes also strike many other parts of the world. Australia ranks second to the United States in number of twisters, and many damaging tornadoes strike Bangladesh. Tornadoes occur most often during the spring and early summer in the late afternoon and early evening. \nA tornado over a body of water is called a waterspout. Waterspouts occur frequently in summer over the Florida Keys. Waterspouts also form elsewhere in the Gulf, along the Atlantic and Pacific coasts, over the Great Lakes, and even over the Great Salt Lake in Utah. \nThe story of a tornado. The majority of tornadoes develop from severe thunderstorms. A hurricane, when it makes landfall, can also generate tornadoes. \nThe most damaging tornadoes form in large, powerful thunderstorms called supercells. For a supercell to form, and perhaps spawn a tornado, several conditions must exist. There must be an adequate supply of moisture to feed the storm. In Tornado Alley, air from the Gulf of Mexico provides the moisture. There must be a layer of warm, moist air near the ground and a layer of much cooler air above. Often, a front (the boundary between two air masses at different temperatures) powers an upward flow of warm air. As the warm air rises, it begins to cool, and the moisture it holds condenses into raindrops. The air stops rising at high levels and spreads sideways to form a characteristic anvil-shaped storm cloud. \nFor a supercell to develop, the winds at higher elevations must differ markedly from those at lower levels in speed, direction, or both. Such a large difference in wind speed or direction is called wind shear. Wind shear makes the column of rising air begin to rotate, forming a broad, horizontal tube of swirling air. As the storm continues, this tube turns on its end, producing a rotating column of air called a mesocyclone. Studies show that most supercells containing mesocyclones eventually produce tornadoes. \nA low, dark, heavy cloud called a wall cloud forms underneath the mesocyclone. Tornado funnels develop out of the wall cloud. \nThe first sign of an approaching tornado may be light rain, followed by heavier rain, then rain mixed with hail. The hailstones may grow to the size of golf balls or even baseballs. After the hail ends, a tornado may strike. In most tornadoes, a funnel-shaped cloud forms and descends from the wall cloud until it touche
314785
A tornado WATCH means conditions are right for a tornado to occur.  A tornado WARNING means a tornado has been sighted in the posted area or is visible on radar.
782180
The tornado picks up tons of debris,and the howling winds\ncreate the most of the sound.\n            Old Fujita Scale:                New Fujita Scale:\nF-0       40-72 mph                           65-85 mph\nF-1      73-112 mph                          86-110 mph\nF-2     113-157 mph                       111-135 mph\nF-3     158-206 mph                       136-165 mph\nF-4      207-259 mph                      166-200 mph\nF-5      260-318 mph                      More than 200 mph
599792
Tornado Alley might have the MOST frequency of tornadoes, but the worst type of tornadoes , I believe,are "waterspouts": tornadoes that form on oceans (yikes! where to hide from that one?)  They occur fairly around warm waters (including Florida).\n\nCheck these chilling pictures out\n\nhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Trombe.jpg\nhttp://www.photolib.noaa.gov/historic/nws/images/big/wea00312.jpg
348378
After reading some of the earlier replies to this question, I think I (or someone else with expertise in meteorology) must respond. First, DO NOT WASTE PRECIOUS TIME OPENING THE WINDOWS OF YOUR HOME!!! This is an old-wives tale, passed down by those who do not understand the pressure-loading upon walls during tornadic events. The inside of a tornado is low pressure, much lower than in your home. As a tornado passes near or over the home, pressure builds on the inside of the walls, out. Due to the depth of the low in a tornado, this pressure builds up much earlier than will any damage from in-blown debris will occur. In fact, if the windows are going to blow out, they will do so whether you go around opening them or not. Opening the windows also does not alleviate the pressure build-up along the walls, since unless you own clerestory windows (for which you can't open anyway) and your entire house is glass, the pressure will still build up along the walls regardless. Opening the windows is only a time-waster, and will offer no real protection from anything. At best, from the time those sirens go off, you have 15 minutes to get to cover - you do NOT have time to waste opening windows.\n\nSecond, unless you are a trained storm spotter or experienced chaser (and, since you're asking this question, you aren't) DO NOT try and "film" the tornado. Quite frankly, every civilian who does this not only puts their own lives at risk, but they also selfishly endanger the lives of EMS and civil defense workers. I personally think that every good-timing yahoo who tries to film the tornado, and lacks the knowledge to do so safely, should be mandated to make the calls to the families of the police, fire, and EMS heroes who sacrifice in the line of duty to save the idiots.\n\nAnother misconception that needs to be dispelled before someone suggests it, is DO NOT seek refuge under an overpass if you're caught outside in a tornadic event. Five or six years ago, there was some infamous footage of a t.v. camera crew taking cover under an overpass when they themselves were caught outside while taping the storm (yet another example of point 2 above). They luckily survived, and because they did, many people who watched the tape believed (falsely) that this was a good tactic. If you examine the equation of vorticity, you will note that the wind speed actually increases as the circumference of the confining area decreases- in other words, the wind speed and force actually increases under overpasses. At least a few souls that I know of found this out the hard way. If you're caught outside, the best thing you can do to protect yourself is to lie smooshed-down, as flat as you can, into the nearest gulley or ditch; cover your head and neck with your arms so that you have at least some protection from debris. Hopefully, this tactic will shield you from debris, and may reduce the suction force since wind speeds slow down considerably in the boundary layer due to friction forces.\n\nIf you're in your car, abandon it and follow the procedure in paragraph 3 - you do not have the experience to know how to drive around a tornado and stay (relatively) safe. If you're in an apartment or trailer, either seek shelter in the storm shelter the property managers have (hopefully) put on-site or follow either the outdoor procedures (trailer park residents) or the following house advice (apartment dwellers). If you're in an apartment which does not have a shelter, or a house, seek shelter either (ideally) in a basement or in a window-less, centrally-located bathroom - or if all else fails, closet. You need windowless because you want to avoid flying glass and debris, and central because most tornados that strike are F3 or lower, which will only typically take the outer walls, and leave inner rooms intact. Bathrooms offer more protection than closets, because of the plumbing in the walls (of course, this only really applies if the plumb