Tornado's in Tornado Alley

Tornado in Shawnee, and Moore Oklahoma

Defining a Tornado

A Tornado is a localized, violently destructive windstorm occurring over land,especially in the Middle West, and characterized by a long,funnel-shaped cloud extending toward the ground and madevisible by condensation and debris.

Describing how Tornados Form

The first step for this is formation: As the mesocyclone(area of organized rotation) approaches the ground, a visible condensation funnel appears to descend from the base of the storm. As the funnel descends, the rear flank downdraft (RFD) also reaches the ground. This creates a gust front that can cause damage a good distance from the tornado. The funnel cloud becomes a tornado within minutes of the RFD reaching the ground. The second step is maturity: Early on, the tornado has a good source of warm, moist in-flowing air to power it, so it grows to maturity. This can be a few minutes or more than an hour. This is the most destructive phase of the tornado and can be more than 1.6 km across. The RFD has become an area of cool surface winds and begins to wrap around the tornado, cutting off the inflow of warm air, effectively choking the tornado. The third and final step is Demise: As the RFD chokes off the tornado’s air supply, the vortex begins to weaken. This dissipating stage only lasts a few minutes then the tornado fizzles. The tornado is still capable of causing damage. The storm is contracting, but the winds can increase in speed.

The Wind Speed for Shawnee and Moore Tornado's

The wind speed for the Shawnee tornado was up to 166 to 200 mph making it a F4 tornado. The Moore tornado was even faster than the Shawnee one this one had winds up to 210 mph making it an EF5

Fujita Scale
