May 21, 2013—Two days before a tornado—with winds clocked at 190 miles per hour—tore through suburban Oklahoma City on May 20, National Geographic explorer and storm researcher Tim Samaras...

2025年2月6日 · A tornado forms from a large thunderstorm. Inside thunderclouds, warm, humid air rises, while cool air falls--along with rain or hail. These conditions can cause spinning air currents inside the cloud.

While the exact conditions are different for each, in order to understand how a tornado forms, we must first understand the storm that is essentially its parent—the supercell thunderstorm. A supercell, unlike a regular thunderstorm, contains the most important ingredient in the making of a tornado: a spinning column of air at its center ...

2024年3月30日 · In this guide, we’ll explore the science behind tornadoes, focusing on the meteorological processes that lead to their formation, the stages of development, the types of tornadoes, and the environmental factors that influence their intensity.

Tornado formation is caused by the stretching and aggregating/merging of environmental and/or storm-induced vorticity that tightens into an intense vortex. There are various ways this may come about and thus various forms and sub-forms of tornadoes.

A tornado can form in a thunderstorm where the rotating air of an updraft (shown in purple) meets the rotating air of a downdraft (shown in aqua), which has turned upward. Paul Markowski, Penn State University. Tornadoes only form when a thunderstorm has a particular combination of winds.

2023年11月1日 · Scientists may be turning up new clues to tornado formation by studying what’s happening in the atmosphere around them and on the ground below them, and by comparing what they find in the field...

What is a tornado? A tornado is a narrow, violently rotating column of air that extends from a thunderstorm to the ground. Because wind is invisible, it is hard to see a tornado unless it forms a condensation funnel made up of water droplets, dust and debris. Tornadoes can be among the most violent phenomena of all atmospheric storms we experience.

2024年4月3日 · In this article, we’ll unravel the mysteries of tornado formation, exploring the atmospheric conditions, processes, and factors that give rise to these formidable storms. Let’s break down the science behind their creation.

2024年7月16日 · Scientists still have unanswered questions about tornadoes: Why do most supercell thunderstorms not result in a tornado? How exactly do tornadoes form? What are the causes of wind shear that lead to rotation? NOAA scientists are working to learn more about tornado formation and improve forecasting.