Twisters! (Geography Smart).April showers bring May flowers--and maybe a tornado tornado, dark, funnel-shaped cloud containing violently rotating air that develops below a heavy cumulonimbus cloud mass and extends toward the earth. The funnel twists about, rises and falls, and where it reaches the earth causes great destruction. or two. Each spring, residents of many Midwestern and Southern states Southern States U.S. Confederacy government of 11 Southern states that left the Union in 1860. [Am. Hist.: EB, III: 73] Dixie popular name for Southern states in U.S. and for song. [Am. Hist. listen carefully for tornado warnings A tornado warning is issued when:
Tornadoes--also called twisters and cyclones--are powerful, rapidly rotating windstorms. The winds in these storms can reach speeds of more than 300 miles per hour. They can tear up trees, rip apart houses, and turn over cars. Often they are deadly. Most tornadoes in the U.S. form when a mass of cold, dry air from the north meets a mass of warm, moist air from the Gulf of Mexico Noun 1. Gulf of Mexico - an arm of the Atlantic to the south of the United States and to the east of Mexico Golfo de Mexico Atlantic, Atlantic Ocean - the 2nd largest ocean; separates North and South America on the west from Europe and Africa on the east . Many develop as part of larger, rotating thunderstorms thunderstorms a storm characterized by thunder and lightning caused by strong rising air currents; identified as agents of animal disease because of their involvement causing (1) spasmodic colic; (2) lightning strike; (3) injuries of cattle acquired in stampedes initiated by storms. . Tornadoes occur throughout the world, but the U.S. is most vulnerable. In an average year, about 1,000 tornadoes hit the nation. Many crash through Tornado Alley, an area in the middle of the U.S. that gets the greatest number of twisters each year (see map). Study the map, then answer the questions. |
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