How Does a Tornado Form?

How Does a Tornado Form? · 2:07 · Intellect Plus

In short: Most tornadoes are a very small extension of a vast rotating updraft built from moisture, rising air and wind shear, and scientists are still working out why only some rotating storms produce one.

A 2:07 short film in the series “Invisible Atmosphere”, narrated by intellect_voice_01.

Sources used in this film: National Weather Service (NOAA), Louisville office (weather.gov/lmk), “Chapter 17”; NOAA National Severe Storms Laboratory (NSSL), “Severe Weather 101: Thunderstorm Types”; National Weather Service (NOAA), Houston/Galveston office training page; article by meteorologist Jeff Haby, theweatherprediction.com, “THUNDERSTORMS”; National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), JetStream, U.S. Department of Commerce, “Ingredients for a Thunderstorm”; NOAA Institutional Repository (article published in the Journal of the Atmospheric Sciences, American Meteorological Society), “NOAA Institutional Repository”; NOAA National Severe Storms Laboratory (NSSL), “NSSL Research: Tornadoes”; NOAA Institutional Repository (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration); journal article by Homeyer, Sandmæl, Potvin and Murphy, Monthly Weather Review, 2020, “NOAA Institutional Repository”; Monthly Weather Review, American Meteorological Society (authors from The Pennsylvania State University and Purdue University; hosted on NSF Public Access Repository), “Processes Preventing the Development of a Significant Tornado in a Colorado Supercell on 26 May 2010”; U.S. National Science Foundation Public Access Repository (NSF PAR); abstract of Goldacker & Parker, Journal of the Atmospheric Sciences, 2021, “Low-level Updraft Intensification in Response to Environmental Wind Profiles”; NOAA National Severe Storms Laboratory (NSSL), U.S. Department of Commerce, “May 3, 1999 Oklahoma/Kansas Tornado Outbreak”; National Weather Service Weather Forecast Office Norman, Oklahoma (NOAA, US Department of Commerce), “The Great Plains Tornado Outbreak of May 3-4, 1999”.

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