3.15 Tornadoes Lesson

​3.15 Tornadoes

​Tornado Alley is the name for the central United States where more tornadoes occur than anywhere else.

​Supercell thunderstorms - the most violent of all thunderstorm types.
Capable of producing damaging winds, large hail, and weak-to-violent tornadoes. Most common during the spring across the central United States

Multiple Choice

Tornadoes can be caused by:

• Hot air bumping into warm air

• a lightning strike

• Children running fast in the hall at school

• A mass of warm air colliding with a mass of cold air

​Tornadoes can spin at up to 480 Kilometers per hour.
A vortex - a mass of whiling air is what makes the tornado.
swirl - to spin or whirl. column - a tall, straight post.
About 1200 tornadoes are reported in the U.S. each year.

​Types of tornadoes

​Waterspouts fall into two categories: fair weather waterspouts and tornadic waterspouts.
Tornadic waterspouts are tornadoes that form over water, or move from land to water.

Multiple Choice

Most tornadoes happen in

• Canada

• the United States

• Mexico

​These dust-filled vortices, created by strong surface heating, are generally smaller and less intense than a tornado.
Typical diameters of dust devils range from 3 to 100 meters, with an average height of approximately 150 to 300 meters.

​These are dust devils on mars.
You can hear the dust bing blown around at the end.

​The strength of tornadoes is measured using the EF scale.

​storm chasers are people who find storms and study them.

Multiple Choice

One way to tell if a tornado is coming:

• you see lightning

• you see a funnel cloud

• you see a rainbow

Multiple Choice

Collide means:

• bump into, or hit

• work together secretly

• blow away

• ​forecast - to tell what will happen ahead of time.

• model - a small copy

• radar - a tool that measures speed

• satelite - an object sent into space to orbit the Earth

• Weather balloon - a balloon with tools to measure the weather

​weather balloon

​radar

​weather satelite

​drill - to learn by doing something again and again.
siren - an object that makes a loud warning sound
storm shelter - an underground room made to protect people in a tornado.

​An EF5 tornado destroys almost everything in its path. This is a picture from Oklahoma and Joplin, Missouri.

Multiple Choice

A tornado is

• a spinning cloud

• a floating cloud

• a thin cloud

Multiple Choice

A tornado's winds can reach

• 5 kilometers per hour

• 50 kilometers per hour

• 480 kilometers per hour

Multiple Choice

Most tornadoes begin as a

• light in the sky

• thunderstorm

• white cloud

Multiple Choice

Which is NOT a way to stay safe in a tornado?

• Listen to weather reports.

• Find shelter in a basement.

• Stay in your car.

Multiple Choice

What is another name for tornado?

• Clouds

• Twister

• Spinner

• Reaching Clouds

Multiple Choice

How fast can tornadoes spin?

• They do not spin

• Up to 500 km/hr

• 4 km/hr

• 4589 km/hr

Multiple Choice

What are the people called that follow big storms?

• Cloud surveyors

• Radar watchers

• Storm Chasers

• Meteorologists