Is tornadoes just a north america thing ?

[foxer 0]

See how central US had a huge storm with tornadoes i was wondering if they hit any other part of the world ? I know canada get some tornados.Don't know about mexico...

[blackdog~ 0]

A lot of other places have tornados.

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote </td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">Tornadoes occur on all continents of the world except Antarctica, with the Great Plains of the United States accounting for 70% of the total number.  The area known as "tornado alley" has become a haven for storm chasers and a killing field for deadly twisters.  It stretches up through the central United States through Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Arkansas, and other central states. <span id='postcolor'>

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote </td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">In North America, most tornadoes occur in the central Great Plains region of the United States, but every state east of the Rocky Mountains is at moderate to high risk of tornado activity. This is due to the clash of contrasting air masses (cool, dry continental air meeting warm, moist maritime air) that frequently occurs over the eastern two-thirds of the United States. The states of Kansas and Oklahoma usually experience the most tornadoes per year. Iowa, Nebraska, Texas, Arkansas, and Missouri comprise the area which reports the second highest number of tornadoes per year. States west of the Rocky Mountains are generally considered to be in a low-risk region.

Tornadoes occur in many areas around the world. However, no region experiences more tornadoes than the central United States. Besides this region, portions of western Europe are perhaps most notably at risk. In the British Isles, an average of 10 tornadoes per year are recorded.

<span id='postcolor'>

[black__bird 0]

yeah...we just had about 7 in my area a few days ago....

[Schoeler 0]

I used to see tornados over the ocean, or waterspouts all the time in the central pacific.

[DarkLight 0]

I've seen two mini tornados here in Belgium, last year during summer vacation i saw one break down a tent, the iron bars from the tent were broken (the bars were about 5 cm thick i think). Of course one of these mini tornados is nothing really special because after a couple seconds it's gone but as this situation has learned me they can be pretty powerful...

I know they're nothing compared to the real ones that you find in north america and perhaps other places but it's the best i've ever seen in real life...

[MrMilli 0]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/2996067.stm

[FSPilot 0]

Never seen a tornado, but last weekend I was under a bunch of them. They went right near me luckilly before they touched down. We're supposed to get more tonight.

I'd LOVE to see one though, I've seen so many videos and TV shows on them, they're fascinating.

[IsthatyouJohnWayne 0]

Ive seen one out at sea ,quite big and scary looking, it just touched the sea for a few minutes before starting to disperse.

hhm... is that tornado? I seem to remember there is different name for sea based tornadoes...too lazy to google ughh

Water spout, thats it. Ive seen a water spout. Im so proud .

[Hit_Sqd_Maximus 0]

7--></span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (FSPilot @ 08 May 2003,237)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">Never seen a tornado, but last weekend I was under a bunch of them.  They went right near me luckilly before they touched down.  We're supposed to get more tonight.

I'd LOVE to see one though, I've seen so many videos and TV shows on them, they're fascinating.<span id='postcolor'>

I did on May 3rd when about 72 (I think?) tornadoes hit in a single night a few years ago. It was one of the most amazing things I had ever seen. It picked up a car and rolled it across a field and literally rolled it into a ball.

edit: I think in Australlia they are called willies or a cyclone or something? maybe that is a hurricane

[Hit_Sqd_Maximus 0]

Speak of devil........ there is on in Oklahoma right now, about 30 miles from were I live. It just hit a GM plant at sooner road and I240 (If you know were that is) and is really close to Tinker AFB in OKC.

[Milkman 1]

Hah, allah has shown his power to the infadel (oklahoma)

Texas has gained the upper hand!      

But seriously, I was here in the Texas When the F5 hit Jarrel (I'm very sorry if I spelled it wrong) That moster Vaporized whole families out of existance, It tore up piplines 100 feet under the ground and completey ate up houses, foundations and all. That was about 100 miles north of me I beilieve, but we had some F1's and F2's about 25 miles to the north and west of me when that thing hit. Its very scary being near a tornado, I saw one touch down once, I was about about 6 miles from my house (saw it touchdown from about a half a mile away from my position). It wasn't anything big, It probably would redigster on the Fukuyama scale (not sure how its spelled again)

[booradley60 0]

I saw a tornado once when I was four here in central Alabama (about 20 miles north of Montgomery).  I don't remember much except my mom being scared shitless and herding my sister and me into the car to speed off to my grandmother's house in Montgomery.  Our house wasn't hit or anything but I think it clipped the farthest edge of our pasture (yes pasture, but since then we've moved into a town with lots of people and no pastures)  That's my only experience with a tornado.  The only tornado in Alabama that I remember receiving national attention was the Palm Sunday tornado up north of Birmingham that killed a lot of people in the middle of Sunday service...  oops, getting back on topic, I've never seen or heard anything in Europe comparing with the monsters of the Midwest.  I didn't even know they occured more than once a year in Europe.  I wonder if any of the Europeans have a civil defense system over there concerned with weather alerts like we have.  Can anyone enlighten me?

[canukausiuka 1]

Torandoes may be interesting, but they are NOT something you want to encounter !

Earlier this school year, on the 11 of November, my school got hit by a tornado... while I was there. Thank God that the staff was prepared, they had us all in the bottom floor in the hallway when it hit. We heard glass break, felt the walls shake, and gusts of wind come under the doors... then the fire alarm went off (the power was already out), and we were left sitting there until the staff evaluated the situation and decided to move us.

Coming out of that building was a scene I'll never forget: the whole area of campus was devastated... my dorm was missing most of its roof, as well as half of the 4th floor, trees were down everywhere, and debris was all over the place. They moved us into the gym to wait out the rest of the storm, then sent us back to the dorm telling us that some rooms were in bad shape. My roommate's and mine was totalled

two of our three windows were out, glass in/on everything. He was worse off than me though, he lost all his clothes, all his computer, and most of his stuff lying around. I only lost a few things, and slight damage to my computer. Furthermore, his brand-new truck was hit by a dumpster out back, and was totalled.

On the upside, we did get out of school for a week , but now they've got us in the 'guest' dorms, which is nothing more than dorms that the university lacked the people to fill, so it's been sitting empty for the last 10 or 15 years... it sucks something awful. Oh well, less than two weeks, I graduate and leave this place

I never saw the tornado that hit though, but it came right through us (you could see the path, and where we were was where it went). We were lucky though, we only had one student injured.

Bah, I think I had a point when I started to post this, but just remember that tornadoes are not something you want to be close enough to to see!

[Hit_Sqd_Maximus 0]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (Sgt. Milkman @ 09 May 2003,03:55)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">Hah, allah has shown his power to the infadel (oklahoma)

Texas has gained the upper hand!      <span id='postcolor'>

Hehe, we will get you back...

OMG, it totally destroyed the GM plant (for those of you who dont know, its a car manufacturing plant), about 100,000 people are now out of work unless they decide to rebuild it

What was really amazing was the tornado was going straight towards one of those towers with a camera on top that the news channels use and you could see the tornado come from about 2 miles closer and close untill a big peice of debreit hits the camera and I guess knocks it out of commission.

Pretty much the only things it destroyed was the GM plant, a mcdonalds, a taco bell, 2 gas stations, a bank, about 30 houses and a truck stop. Hopefully no one was killed.

[foxer 0]

I was almost in a tornadoe,Back in mississippi.It was funnel cloud you could see it,it was spinning and crap ,but it never did touch down.Why was i outside ? Don't know. I was only like 10 though.Plus it wasn't lighting or rainning just dark clouds.

[FSPilot 0]

Tornados on water are called water-spouts, I think.

Anyway, we got 3 more tonight, at least in my area. Probably more as the thunderstorms were pretty wide spread.

[peanuckle_00 0]

Are tornadoes just a North America thing? No. Tornadoes are not just a North America thing because I learned in the bible that there was once a tornado of fire around present day Iraq just by looking at maps.

[Tex -USMC- 0]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (peanuckle_00 @ 09 May 2003,06:48)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">Are tornadoes just a North America thing?  No.  Tornadoes are not just a North America thing because I learned in the bible that there was once a tornado of fire around present day Iraq just by looking at maps.<span id='postcolor'>

Does that last sentence make sense to anyone? I can't make heads or tails of it.

[peanuckle_00 0]

No, tornadoes are not just a North America thing. What's the point of this thread?

[bn880 5]

The thing with tornadoes in the states appears to be the size of land mass separating the masses of water. What you get are colliding warm low pressure humid fronts with cold high pressure dry (but with cloud layer) fronts. What happens is as you can imagine, the cold front really tries to mix in with the low pressure hot front quickly, high winds, quick pressure drops, chaos. Well at least that's the way I can explain it without research...

This can therefore happen in many places where different saturated weather fronts collide. We have 2 to 3 fronts colliding non stop over Ottawa Canada, but no such problems, just extremely quick weather/temperature changes. (bad on your health)

[peanuckle_00 0]

So, thats why they get tornadoes in the midwest. Hmm. Thanks.

[Die Alive 0]

The area I have marked covers the states that have recorded an F5 tornado touchdown, except Colorado and Arkansas. Colorado and Arkansas are still included because they record many smaller tornadoes each year and have had significant tornadoes in their history. So the area marked on this map as Tornado Alley is based on where dangerous tornadoes and tornadoes in general are most likely going to take place in a given year.

-=Die Alive=-

[FSPilot 0]

I heard that tornados are caused by warm air from the gulf of mexico heading north and meeting cold air from the antarctic heading south which creates a horizontal vortex. The vortex is then sort of tilted down vertically and into the ground, causing a tornado.

Doesn't really make sense to me though, I don't understand how you can just roll wind.

[Die Alive 0]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (FSPilot @ 09 May 2003,13:46)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">I heard that tornados are caused by warm air from the gulf of mexico heading north and meeting cold air from the antarctic heading south which creates a horizontal vortex.  The vortex is then sort of tilted down vertically and into the ground, causing a tornado.

Doesn't really make sense to me though, I don't understand how you can just roll wind.  <span id='postcolor'>

Arctic. Antartic is where Linux OS comes from.

-=Die Alive=-

[FSPilot 0]

I stand corrected.

But is that how tornados are formed?