Tornadoes, Natural Hazards

What are the causes of tornadoes?

 Cyclones, twisters, tempests, tornadoes or whatever else you wish to call them form when warm, humid air collides with cold, dry air. The denser cold air is pushed over the warm air, usually producing thunderstorms from friction. The warm air rises through the colder air, causing an updraft. The updraft will begin to rotate if winds vary sharply in speed or direction creating the starter for a tornado, most common of which is a supercell thunderstorm. There can be different types of storms that can lead to tornadoes but a supercell is the most common and dangerous. Now that the supercell has formed the swirling continues to get stronger and larger until it forms a small twister on the ground which quickly intensifies creating a large tornado. That warm air is also still rising through the cold air creating an updraft around the tornado which is able to pick up large objects in especially large and/or strong storms, the rising is extremely strong while inside the tornado's eye (the middle). A sudden wind shear (a quick change in wind direction or speed) can make twisters bend and look like a squiggly line, as shown in my flow diagram of a tornado forming. 

What effect does a tornado have on the land and man-made features?

 A powerful Funnel Cloud’s winds are known to tear up roofs and turn windows into shotgun-like debris, harming and killing anyone in its path. Depending on the F/EF rating of the tornado they can also shred a house to pieces or even tear it right out of its concrete foundations leaving debris and disaster. Tornadoes will also ruin the landscape by taking the bark off trees leading to them dying or in extreme/strong twisters, uprooting them. They’ll also lift cars off the ground and send them into structures and overturn trucks, empty riverbeds, and destroy bridges limiting access to people and aid. 

A great example of the destruction that a tornado can create happened in El Reno Oklahoma USA with the El Reno tornado in 31 May 2013 which lasted from 6:03 p.m to 6:43 p.m EST. The El Reno tornado broke multiple records including being the fastest EF-3 rated tornado in history and the fact that it didn’t kill many people for how powerful it was. While the tornado was rated EF3 on the Enhanced Fujita scale, the tornado averaged around 280 kph wind speeds in the outer area and extreme winds up to 135.0 meters per second (302 mph; 486 km/h) within the twister’s vortex making it a small but incredibly powerful tornado. Unfortunately, however, the storm did take 8 lives. The small super tornado killed three professional storm chasers and one amateur chaser. One chaser of which was Tim Samaras, his son Paul, and colleague Carl Young, at the time Tim Samaras was a world leader in the meteorology of storms and was well known across the world. Over all the storm killed 8 people, injured 151, affected over 700, and obliterated 29 buildings and homes, and 40 vehicles. Here is a graph of how different El Reno was compared to other regular tornadoes. 

What effect do tornadoes have on society and its people?

 While the El Reno tornado was still active it was terrifying residents and likely traumatising many, especially the younger children and kids. ‘Many people were sleeping in the shelter. A reporter said they had arrived quietly, and nearly expressionless. “I think they’re in shock,” She said. “Some of them lost everything.” This is a quote from a reporter who arrived around 8:00 pm to report on the situation for the news. Another man named Robert Gawhega was left terrified after his home was destroyed, “A gust came up and our trailer tipped over,” said Robert Gawhega, who survived the tornado that shook his trailer the way a child shakes a toy. “There I was, flying across the room!” as his home tipped over. The tornado left many homeless after everything they owned was swept away in an oversized gust of wind. People were also still in danger after the tornado has dispersed from unstable buildings and the storms that followed from the extremely sudden pressure changes and temperature changes from the storm and violent tornado. But all that destruction from the tornado also brought the community together. While people were huddled together in community shelters they talked, and made a few friends, neighbours invited the whole neighbourhood together for a potluck dinner creating friends. The tornado required that the community come together and help each other out in the clean-up and recovery efforts making people closer and making friends for life and forever bonds.

How should people respond and deal with a tornado?

 There are 5 easy steps to stay safe during a tornado: 

  1. Find safe shelter immediately, such as a safe room, basement, storm cellar or a small interior room on the lowest level of a sturdy building. 

  2. Stay away from windows, doors, and outside walls as they could collapse or cave inwards. 

  3. Make sure you have enough food (non-perishable is preferred) and water to last 7 days as you may have to stay inside for a while. 

  4. Have a radio with you as the cellphone towers are likely to be taken down in a tornado and you may have no reception to make calls and get weather information from the internet.

 5. If you have to go outside for any reason use your arms to protect your head and neck.

 How did people respond to the El Reno tornado?

 The steps taken by the emergency response crews and civilians were as so:

  1. Medical services arrive to treat those with the worst and life-threatening injuries and search destroyed buildings for survivors despite the large risk of another twister forming in the area.

  2. A temporary hospital tent is set up for the dead and injured.

  3. The Salvation Army of Central Oklahoma quickly mobilized its canteen (mobile feeding unit) to offer support and breakfast to all those impacted by the tornado and who have come over from towns around to offer help and support.

  4. People are taken to the town hall and local school hall which are still standing to set up beds for those who are now homeless from their homes getting demolished from the twister.

  5. The whole community gathers together to start cleaning up debris around the town, set up spare rooms in their surviving houses and a GoFundMe site is launched to help feed those in need.

  6. After a three-week period the community starts to rebuild destroyed and damaged buildings including the damaged school classrooms, the destroyed car sales lot, multiple homes for those who lost theirs, the local pub, and the hotel that has its entire second floor wiped clean off.

 How can the effects of tornadoes be minimized?

 There are a few ways that I have found to make sure that the chances of you and your house surviving a tornado are higher than before, some are expensive and others a simple little tips and tricks that cost nothing. First off, the biggest reason that a house is destroyed in tornadoes is that it is not up to scratch with the building codes and may not be as strong as it should be, so make sure it is! The second tip that will keep your house safe is making sure that you have thick windows on your house, double glazing would also be very good for making sure that the powerful winds of a tornado stay outside and cannot come inside. The third tip for making sure that your house can survive a tornado is to have a large strong foundation for it, while it may be more expensive to put in later on when building a house in twister-prone areas it could very well save your home. The fourth tip would be to have strong locks on your doors because doors are quite prone to being blown inwards in storms so having strong locks on them will not only make your house harder to break into by criminals but much more tornado-proof. And lastly in my opinion the thing everyone should have on their phones is a free app called “Hazards” developed by Red Cross for everyone to use, it will warn you of the risk of an incoming tornado or any other natural hazard like earthquakes, floods, and tsunamis.