Tornadoes

Tornadoes are large funnel clouds that are accompanied by high wind speeds along with an extreme drop in pressure and lots of hail, rain, and thunder. But how do they form?

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On a hot day when there is a lot of moisture in the air, a thunderstorm can form. The evaporation of moisture is caused by energy from the sun heating the ground, causing any water to also heat up. Some of this energy is released through a process called evaporation, when the water turns into vapor and floats up into the sky. When there is enough water vapor together, it condenses and forms clouds. In a thunderstorm, there are different sections of the storm with electrical energy. However, their charges are different. The charges slowly build up throughout the storm, and when they are too contrasting a bolt of lightning temporarily diffuses it, or reduces the charge.

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When the winds (as described on the wind page) are blowing in different directions at ground level than in the atmosphere, they can create a horizontal tube of rotating air. When the air is rising, as it does when it gets heated up, it can turn into a vertical column. This combined with a thunderstorm can create a mesocyclone, the most dangerous kind of thunderstorm, a rotating thunderstorm that is better known as the supercell. Sometimes, when the storm becomes powerful enough, a funnel cloud will drop out of the storm. If it touches the ground, it is called a tornado.