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The Formations of Torandoes Essay

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Tornadoes Nebraskans are no strangers to tornadoes. They are a part of the spring and summer living in the Central Plains. We all know the damage tornadoes can create either first hand, as some can remember being around for the 1980 tornadoes that ripped through Grand Island, or know someone who has experienced a tornado first hand. Even though I have been living in Nebraska my entire life I still do not understand exactly how a tornado forms or what ingredients are needed in order to make a tornado form. In this paper that is exactly what we will look at, how a tornado is formed. We will look at the conditions needed for tornado formation, how tornadoes are formed out of supercells, and finally what spotters look for when chasing…show more content…
The most violent tornados form from supercell storms. Not all tornadoes form from a supercell storm, but this will be the focus of the paper because these are usually the tornadoes that do the most damage and stick around the longest (About Tornadoes). Figure 1. Anatomy of a supercell thunderstorm from Wicker, Crystal. "Weather Wiz Kids Weather Information for Kids." Weather Wiz Kids Weather Information for Kids. Crystal Wicker, n.d. Web. 09 Feb. 2014.
“A supercell thunderstorm consists primarily of a single rotating updraft. Its organized internal structure allows the storm to maintain itself for several hours” (Ahrens). Figure 1 above illustrates what the inside of a supercell thunderstorm would look like and shows the tornado produced from this storm. As figure 1 illustrates, the counterclockwise rotating air labeled the mesocyclone is the warm, humid air coming into the cumulonimbus cloud. The heavy rain-chilled air from the mesocyclone then descends as a strong downdraft called the forward-flank downdraft. Vertical wind shear is also an important part of the how a tornado forms. “The vertical wind shear causes the air near the surface to rotate about a horizontal axis. If the strong updraft of a developing thunderstorm should tilt the rotating tube upward and draw into the storm, the tilted rotating tube then becomes a rotating air column inside the storm” (Ahrens). The updraft, the counterclockwise swirling precipitation, and
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