1. What is a tornado? Marin Alina 12 th grade

2. Small tornadoes sometimes form on the edge of bigger tornadoes

3. Each year, about a thousand tornadoes touch down in the United States, far more than any other country

4. ► The United States have an average of 800 tornadoes every year. ► Each year, dozens of Americans die from tornadoes. ► Usually, a tornado’s color matches the color of the ground. ► Some tornadoes make a considerable amount of noise while others make very little. It depends on the objects a tornado might hit or carry. A tornado moving along an open plain may make very little noise. ► Some people think the crop circles in the UK are the result of weak whirlwinds. About 60 of these small tornadoes are formed every year in Britain.

5. ► Waterspouts are tornadoes that form over a body of water. ► A strong tornado can pick up a house and move it down the block. ► Nebraska, South Dakota, Oklahoma, Texas and Kansas make up Tornado alley, where tornadoes strike regularly in the spring and early summer. ► Many houses in tornado alley have strong basement shelters. ► Some people have seen inside a tornado with their own eyes lived to tell about it. ► Knives and forks have been found embedded in tree trunks flung from a tornado. ► Usually a tornado starts off as a white or gray cloud but if it stays around for a while, the dirt and debris it sucks up eventually turns it into black one. ► 3 out of every 4 tornadoes in the world happen in the United States.

6. ► The Tornado Scale ► The Fujita-Pearson scale or more popularly known as the F scale, is used to measure the intensity of a tornado based on the amount of damage done by a passing tornado over an area. The scale was introduced in 1971 and is named for Ted Fujita who was a professor at the University of Chicago. ► The F scale rates a tornado from F0 all the way to F5 with a F5 tornado having the fastest wind speeds and causing the most damage.

7. ► An F0 Tornado ► Have wind speeds between 40-72 mph ► Causes light damage. ► Branches breaks off of trees and pushes over smaller trees. ► An F1 Tornado ► Have wind speeds between 73-112 mph ► Causes moderate damage. ► Tiles breaks off of roofs. Cars and trailers gets pushed ► An F2 Tornado ► Have wind speeds between 113-157 mph ► Causes considerable damage. ► Roofs gets torned off. Big trees get toppled. Mobile homes are destroyed. Heavy cars are lifted and thrown. ► An F3 Tornado ► Have wind speeds between 158–206 mph ► Causes Severe Damage. ► Roofs torned off even on the most well constructed structures. Trains are overturned. ► An F4 Tornado ► Have wind speeds between 207-260 mph ► Causes Catostrophic Damage ► Well constructed structures are leveled. Structures with weak foundations are blown away. ► An F5 Tornado ► Have wind speeds between 261–318 mph ► Causes Total Damage ► Few if any structures are left standing. Cars become missles flying in the air.