Tornado - Simple English Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia

Tornado
An F3 tornado near Anadarko, Oklahoma, 1999.
Season	Primarily spring and summer, but can be at any time of year
Effect	Wind damage

A tornado is an area of fast spinning winds made by a strong rotating thunderstorm that touches the ground. Tornadoes can be anywhere between a few hundred feet wide and several thousand feet wide. Wind inside the tornado can be very fast, though winds outside or around the tornado can almost as fast. This makes tornadoes very dangerous, and hard to tell where the edge of the tornado is.[1] Tornadoes are especially dangerous to people in cars, trucks, buses or mobile homes and about 60 people are killed by tornadoes every year. The word "tornado" might come from the Spanish word tronada (thunderstorm), which comes from the word tronar (to thunder).[2]

Tornadoes are very destructive – they can tear houses to pieces in seconds. Cars and trucks may be thrown away and often leave people homeless. Tornadoes can be caused by spinning winds inside of a storm. Nearly three quarters of the world's tornadoes happen in the United States. However, they can happen anywhere. The strongest tornadoes were found to have winds around 300 mph, though most tornadoes have winds between 60 and 100 miles per hour.

Tornadoes mostly happen during rotating thunderstorms called supercell storms. These supercells have a rotating updraft, called a mesocyclone, which can lead to them being very strong and dangerous, often producing large and damaging hail and/or damaging winds.

Tornadoes are ranked on the Enhanced Fujita scale, from EF0 to EF5. EF0 is used for tornadoes that cause the least amount of damage, and EF5 is used for tornadoes that cause the most amount of damage.[3] Before 2007, tornadoes used to be rated on the Fujita scale, a now outdated scale made by tornado scientist Ted Fujita, often called the father of tornado science. Fujita was one of the first people to make detailed research on tornadoes and discovered many things about tornadoes. He made the Fujita scale in 1971.

Tornadoes can happen in nearly any part of the world. In the United States, a tornado has happened in every state. The middle part of the United States is nicknamed "Tornado Alley" because of the number of tornadoes there.

Other tornado-like phenomena that exist in nature include the gustnado, dust devil, fire whirls, and steam devil; downbursts are frequently confused with tornadoes, though their action is not similar.