Be Ready!

If a tornado warning is issued for your area, the likelihood of a tornado is very real. Advances in
technology have let meteorologists at the National Weather Service forecast when disasters may
strike with more and more precision. But knowing that a disaster is coming is not enough.
Having a plan actually makes you feel safer knowing what to do in an emergency means that
you are prepared for a disaster and will be able to help yourself and others to be safe.
If you're home
If you have a basement, go there and seek shelter under sturdy furniture.
If you don't have a basement, take cover in the center part of your house
on the lowest floor. The best options are a small room, or else under sturdy furniture.
Don't open the windows; it takes to much time and allows strong winds to
enter your building.
Try to stay away from windows and just take cover.
If you're in school, a shopping center, or another public place
Move to the pre-designated shelter areas.
If you don't know where that is, move to a center hallway on the lowest
floor.
If you think that the building you're in is old or unsafe, move quickly to a
nearby newer building, or else take cover outside on low, protected ground.
Be sure to stay out of auditoriums, gymnasiums, and other structures with
wide free-span roofs these offer little protection since wide roofs can fall in during
tornadoes.
If you're in open country
Move away from the tornado's path at right angles.
If there isn't time to get out of the way, lie down flat in the nearest ditch or
ravine.
If you're in a car
Don't try to outrun a tornado.
If possible, take shelter in a sturdy structure.
Otherwise, get out of the car and move to the nearest ditch or depression
until the tornado passes.




Questions
What do I do if.



I am at home?


I am at school, shopping center or another public place?



In a car?


Open country?





In-Depth

Tornados can cause severe damage like this demolished apartment house in Florida in 1998.
(Photo: J. Pat Carter/AP Wide World)
Keep reading to find out
Where do tornadoes occur?
How are they measured?
How does the warning system work?
Where do they occur?
The U.S. has by far the most tornadoes in the world. It averages 1,000 tornadoes a year!
Tornadoes also occur in other parts of the world, most notably in Australia.
The geography of the central U.S. is uniquely suited to bring together all the ingredients for
tornado formation. With the Rocky Mountains to the west, the Gulf of Mexico to the south, and a
terrain that slopes downward from west to east, this area has become know as "Tornado Alley,"
averaging more than 500 tornadoes annually.
During the spring and summer months, southerly winds originating from the Gulf of Mexico
prevail across the plains, providing the warm, humid air needed to fuel severe thunderstorm
development. Hot, dry air forms over the higher elevations to the west, and becomes the cap as it
spreads eastward over the moist, Gulf air. Where the dry air and the Gulf air meet near the
ground, a boundary known as a dry line forms to the west of Oklahoma. A storm system moving
out of the southern Rockies may push the dry line eastward, with severe thunderstorms and
tornadoes forming along the dry line or in the moist air just ahead of it.
Peak months of tornado activity in the U.S. are April, May, and June. However, tornadoes have
occurred in every month and at all times of the day or night. A typical time of occurrence is on
an unseasonably warm and humid spring day between 3 p.m. and 9 p.m.
When a storm system high in the atmosphere moves east and begins to lift the layers, it begins to
build severe thunderstorms that spawn tornadoes. As it lifts it removes the cap, setting the stage
for explosive thunderstorms to develop as strong updrafts form. If the rising air encounters wind
shear, it may cause the updraft to begin rotating, and a tornado is born.
"Tornado Alley," or the states at the highest risk of getting a tornado, include Arkansas, Iowa,
Kansas, Louisiana, Minnesota, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Dakota, and
Texas.
How are they measured?
Dr. T. Theodore Fujita ("Dr. Tornado") was a pioneer in the study of tornadoes and severe
thunderstorm phenomena. In 1971, he created the Fujita Tornado Damage Scale to estimate
tornado strength based on damage surveys. Since it's extremely difficult to measure tornado
winds directly, this is the best way to classify them.
The scale of a tornado is measured from F0 to F5, or lowest danger to highest danger. An F0
tornado reaches winds from 4072 miles per hour, while an F5 tornado can tear through land at
261318 mph.
The scale goes up to F5 or up to 318 mph. It's possible that a tornado could generate winds
above the scale, but it has never been recorded. On May 3, 1999, an Oklahoma University
Doppler radar remotely sensed tornado wind speeds above ground of 318 mph at Bridge Creek,
Oklahoma the highest winds ever found near Earth's surface, and right at the threshold of
being F6 winds.
Fujita Tornado Damage Scale Developed by "Dr. Tornado", T. Theodore Fujita of the
University of Chicago

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Scale
Wind Estimate (mph)
Typical Damage
F0
< 73
Light damage.
Some damage to chimneys and TV antennas; breaks twigs off trees; pushes over shallow-rooted
trees.
F1
73-112
Moderate damage.
Peels surface off roofs; windows broken; light trailer houses pushed or overturned; some trees
uprooted or snapped; moving automobiles pushed off the road. The beginning of hurricane wind
speed is 74 mph.
F2
113-157
Considerable damage.
Roofs torn off frame houses, leaving strong upright walls; weak buildings in rural areas
demolished; trailer houses destroyed; large trees snapped or uprooted; railroad boxcars pushed
over; light-object missiles generated; cars blown off highway.
F3
158-206
Severe damage.
Roofs and some walls torn off frame houses; some rural buildings completely demolished; trains
overturned; steel-framed hangar-warehouse-type structures torn; cars lifted off the ground; most
trees in a forest uprooted, snapped, or leveled.
F4
207-260
Devastating damage.
Whole frame houses leveled, leaving piles of debris; steel structures badly damaged; trees
debarked by small flying debris; cars and trains thrown some distances or rolled considerable
distances; large missiles generated.
F5
260-318
Incredible damage.
Whole frame houses tossed off foundations; steel-reinforced concrete structures badly damaged;
automobile-sized missiles generated; trees debarked; incredible phenomena can occur.
F6-F12
319 to sonic
Inconceivable damage.
Should a tornado with the maximum wind speed in excess of F5 occur, the extent and types of
damage may not be conceived. A number of missiles such as iceboxes, water heaters, storage
tanks, automobiles, etc. will create serious secondary damage on structures.

Questions

Where do they occur the most and how many are there a year?


When are the peak months for tornadoes?


How are tornadoes measured?


Explain an F5 tornado





A Real Witness Story
Tabatha Henry, 18, lost her home to a tornado. Here, she tells her amazing tale of survival and
recovery from a storm that killed 36 people across five states.
Tornado movies might look real, but they can't compare to the fright of a house collapsing
around you. That's what happened to my family on November 10, 2002. That was the night we
were within an inch of death.
SOMETHING IN THE AIR
During that day, it was unusually hot and muggy in my hometown of Mossy Grove, Tennessee.
My parents were watching heat lightning flash over the sky. It hung in the air for a really long
time. Then, Aunt Linda called. She warned us that there were tornadoes headed our way.
My parents didn't take her warning very seriously. But I turned on the TV and saw the tornadoes
heading for our town. I was terrified. I had to get out of the house. I ran to get my mom.
"Mom, we've got to get out of here!" I shouted.
"No, Tab, it's not going to hit here," she told me. "If you're scared, you can get a mattress and
hide underneath it in the hallway."
"Momma, I can't!" I yelled. "We've got to get out of here!"
"Tabatha, you're scaring your little brother to death," she said. I looked over at Justin, my 9-year-
old brother. He was as white as a ghost.
"I've got a feeling we're going to die!" I yelled. Finally, my dad said we could go down to the
neighbor's house. We raced there in the car. We huddled together under the steps in the
basement.
DISASTER STRIKES
As soon as we hid under the steps, the tornado hit. It lasted only a couple of minutes, but it
seemed to stretch on forever.
The wind was pulling the whole house up. I thought my head was going to explode from the
heavy air pressure.
The top part of the house caved in. The brick wall beside me collapsed. The tornado lifted my
little brother into the air. I thought he was going to get sucked away, but my mom grabbed his
arm and lay on top of him. I cradled my dog, Chipper, and we all held on to each other.
I never prayed so hard in my life. I was just waiting for us to be sucked up into the wind or
buried alive in rubble. Bricks were flying around and hitting us. I thought we were about to die.
In the next minute, there was silence. The tornado had passed. But what remained of the house
started shifting. It was going to collapse!
My dad was pushing the bricks off me. I was trying to get up, but my leg was swelling and I had
blood all over my hands. We had to crawl out through a hole in the rubble. My brother couldn't
climb, so I had to drag him out. Somehow, we all survived.
THE DAMAGE DONE
The Fujita Scale is a way to measure the power of a tornado. It is based on the storm's
destruction. They said the damage that day was like an F5, the most severe tornado possible. The
storms killed 36 people in five states and injured at least 200 more.
When I saw my house the next day, it was in ruins, totally destroyed. I only found one thing of
mine left behind. It was the first doll that I ever had. It was lying there, totally undamaged. That
felt so good, just being able to find something. When we found Justin's bed, it was like
somebody had twisted it into a pretzel.
We also found the mattress we were going to hide under. It was on the other side of the road. If
we had stayed at home, the tornado would have killed us.
REBUILDING
Our new house is supposed to be ready this spring. It will have a big storm shelter underneath it.
We're making it comfortable.
The whole experience made me realize what's important in life. It showed me how fast
everything can be taken away from you. We lost all our things, but I consider myself lucky. I still
have my family.
Questions

Where did this take place?



What happened when disaster struck?


What kind of damage was done?


On the Fujita scale, what did the tornado rate?

How did she explain the rebuilding process?




Experts Say
Storm Chasing
My name is Rich Thompson, and I'm a lead forecaster with the Storm Prediction Center in
Norman, Oklahoma. One of the things we do at the Storm Prediction Center is make forecasts of
when and where tornadoes may occur. Tornado forecasts have gotten better in the past 20 years
because of important new information that comes from tornado research.
Two ways that meteorologists research tornadoes are through field projects and with computer
models. In the field projects, meteorologists get important weather observations by driving and
flying around storms that produce tornadoes. This information is used by the meteorologists to
create computer models of storms. The advantage of using computer models is that you can
change one of the variables, such as temperature, and see how the changes affect a thunderstorm.
Unfortunately for meteorologists, we can't just make changes and see what happens with real
storms!
The biggest problem we have in studying tornadoes is figuring out how to get measurements
inside tornadoes. Researchers have tried to place weather instruments in front of tornadoes for
many years. In more than 15 years of research, these instrument packs have only been hit by a
tornado two or three times! It is now becoming easier to detect wind motions inside tornadoes
with Doppler radar. In the past few years, Doppler radars have been placed on trucks that can be
driven close to the storms that develop tornadoes.
The most important part of the field projects for my job is to find new ways to forecast
tornadoes. A recent project, called VORTEX, provided many more measurements than are
normally available around thunderstorms and tornadoes. Researchers continue to look at all of
the special information gathered during project VORTEX. There is so much information that it
will take many years to examine it all. Future field projects will likely use mobile radars, cars
with weather instruments, many small instrument packs, and remote controlled planes. We hope
to understand tornadoes well enough so that we can accurately predict when they will occur, and
protect the lives of people unfortunate enough to be in the destructive path of a tornado.
Q: What is the biggest tornado you have ever seen?
A: Two tornadoes are tied as my largest one in the Texas Panhandle in June of 1995, and
another in Oklahoma in May of 1999. While a typical tornado is only 100 yards wide, each of
these tornadoes reached a width of about 1.25 miles!
Q: What's the closest you've ever been to a tornado?
A: Back in 1991, my chase partners and I were about 250 yards from a developing tornado. The
tornado was forming in an open area and moving away from us, so we weren't in any great
danger.
Q: Do you ever get scared when you are chasing tornadoes?
A: There have been many times when I've been concerned for my safety. However, it's usually
because of a close lightning strike, not because of a tornado! I try to stay away from the path of a
tornado.
Q: Has anyone ever died while storm chasing?
A: To the best of my knowledge, there has only been one person killed as part of a storm chase. I
believe a chaser died in a car accident while returning home from a storm chase at night in the
rain. There have also been people injured by lightning, but automobile accidents are the biggest
threat.
Q: What equipment do you use for chasing tornadoes?
A: I always take a still camera and video camera with me, along with tripods for them. I have
also used a laptop computer and cellular phone to get weather information while driving around,
along with a GPS (Global Positioning System) to track our exact location at all times. Some
chasers even haveweather instruments attached to their vehicles to monitor temperature, wind,
and moisture changes while driving.
Storm Chasing

What are two ways meteorologists research tornadoes?





What is a big problem that people have in trying to study tornadoes?




What equipment do they use during the storm chase?






What is the closest someone has been when storm chasing?