A Tornado.
Tornadoes are scaled on the Enhanced Fujita Scale. The scale goes from one to five. Tornadoes can last from a few seconds to a couple hours. They have winds speeds from 65 to 300 miles an hour. EF-1 tornadoes have wind gusts around 65 - 85 mph, and can cause significant damage to small barns and buildings. On the other hand, EF-5 tornadoes are the most destructive, wind gusts over 200 mph, and can destroy almost any building.
An area known as "Tornado Alley" has the most tornadoes of any place in the world. It includes Texas Oklahoma, Kansas, and Nebraska. Meteorologists use Doppler radar to detect tornadoes and issue warnings that saves many lives. Tornadoes can also clone themselves if they stay in the same place for too long. A tornado watch is different from a tornado warning. A tornado watch means conditions are favorable for tornadoes to develop, while a tornado warning indicates that a tornado has been sighted or detected by radar. Knowing the difference is crural for Safety. Having a bunker or cellar is also helpful.
There are many types of tornadoes. The common type of tornadoes are funnel-shaped, and get shallower and narrower the closer to the ground they get. Usually are greyish or white. A more rare type, is the nocturnal tornado. Nocturnal tornadoes happen in the night, like their name suggests, and are usually weaker than daytime (regular tornadoes). But they are twice as likely to cause more deaths because you can barely see it in the night. They are the color of the sky, (blackish-grey). Waterspouts, are another type of tornado. They are tornadoes that form over water, and while they look peaceful from afar, never go in to the water if you see one, especially if its close to the shoreline. Waterspouts are accompanied by severe thunderstorms, and can easily overturn and sink boats. Sometimes waterspouts can be caused by thunderstorms at sea. Another type is the multiple-vortex tornado, which is a tornado with multiple funnels coming from one tornado funnel. The subvortices, (other funnels) are generally several times stronger than the first tornado. Multiple-vortex tornados are extremely dangerous, as they can hit multiple spots at once. Another, more well known type of tornado is a dust devil. A dust devil is a strong whirlwind that doesn't last very long. They can either be small, or big. Unlike other types of tornadoes, dust devils are almost always harmless. But more severe ones have been known to cause damage and fling people who get in its way. Dust devils form differently than tornadoes, as HOT air rises to the surface quickly through a pocket of cooler air that is low pressure. A very cool type of tornado is called the fire whirl, also known as a fire tornado. Fire whirls can reach more than 1000 degrees Fahrenheit. Fire whirls often spawn naturally, mostly in wildfires. A fire tornado can also happen if a whirlwind or tornado goes over fire or ash.