Interesting Facts about TORNADOES

Tornadoes, popularly known as twisters, are one of nature’s phenomena that occur due to various reasons. These tornadoes are one of the most destructive of storms. Many of these tornadoes take place mainly in the United States of America although they can occur anywhere across the globe. Frightful and terrifying, the tornadoes are fierce columns of air that rotate at a high speed.  Here are some interesting facts about Tornadoes :-

1. Every tornado has its own color, sound and shape.

2. The wind speed of a tornado is recorded between 40 mph to 110 mph. These rotating tornadoes can travel many kilometers that cause severe destruction to mankind.

3. One cannot say a tornado is of a particular color. Their colors depend upon the environment where it occurs. When the surrounding areas are dry, a tornado may appear partly invisible. It may appear dark to the observer if the sun is behind the tornado.

WATERSPOUT - Amazing Phenomena

A WATERSPOUT is an intense columnar vortex (usually appearing as a funnel-shaped cloud) that occurs over a body of water and is connected to a cumuliform cloud. In the common form, it is a non-supercell tornado over water.While many waterspouts form in the tropics, locations at higher latitude within temperate zones also report waterspouts, such as Europe and the Great Lakes. Although rare, waterspouts have been observed in connection with lake-effect snow precipitation bands.

Waterspouts have a five-part life cycle: formation of a dark spot on the water surface, spiral pattern on the water surface, formation of a spray ring, development of the visible condensation funnel, and ultimately decay.

FIRE WHIRLS - AMAZING PHENOMENA

A fire whirl, also known as fire devil or fire tornado, is a rare phenomenon in which a fire, under certain conditions --depending on air temperature and currents--, acquires a vertical vorticity and forms a whirl, or a tornado-like effect of a vertically oriented rotating column of air. Fire whirls often occur during bush fires. Vertical rotating columns of fire form when the air currents and temperature are just right, creating a tornado-like effect. They can be as high as 30 to 200 ft tall and up to 10 ft wide but only last a few minutes, although some can last for longer if the winds are strong.

An extreme example is the 1923 Great Kantō earthquake in Japan which ignited a large city-sized firestorm and produced a gigantic fire whirl that killed 38,000 in fifteen minutes in the Hifukusho-Ato region of Tokyo.Another example is the numerous large fire whirls that developed after lightning struck an oil storage facility near San Luis Obispo, California on April 7, 1926, several of which produced significant structural damage well away from the fire, killing two. Thousands of whirlwinds were produced by the four-day-long firestorm coincident with conditions that produced severe thunderstorms, in which the larger fire whirls carried debris 5 kilometers away.

RED TIDES - AMAZING PHENOMENA

Red tide is a common name for a phenomenon also known as an ALGAL BLOOM , an event in which estuarine, marine, or fresh water algae accumulate rapidly in the water column and results in discoloration of the surface water. It is usually found in coastal areas.

These algae, known as PHYTOPLANKTON, are single-celled protists, plant-like organisms that can form dense, visible patches near the water's surface. Certain species of phytoplankton, dinoflagellates, contain photosynthetic pigments that vary in color from green to brown to red.

BALL LIGHTNING - Amazing Phenomena

Ball lightning is an unexplained atmospheric electrical phenomenon. The term refers to reports of luminous, usually spherical objects which vary from pea-sized to several metres in diameter. It is usually associated with thunderstorms, but lasts considerably longer than the split-second flash of a lightning bolt. Many of the early reports say that the ball eventually explodes, sometimes with fatal consequences, leaving behind the odour of sulfur.