Fascination with tornadoes

This last Sunday, a string of deadly tornadoes wreaked havoc in the USA. 29 deaths have been accounted for, numerous towns have been destroyed, and people are still making sense of what happened. Meanwhile, the news channels are showing the same wreckage again and again.

But if we seperate the risk from the phenomenon, tornadoes take on a whole different allure. When you watch tornado videos on Youtube, you can't help but feel oddly fascinated by them. I mean, it's like God extended a finger down from heaven and swirled it around, like one would swirl a tequila.

South Dakota tornado, by Carsten Peter for National Geographic.

Most everyone falls into two categories: either you're morbidly fascinated by tornadoes, or you're panicked by them. You can't really ignore it. Such extreme power demands attention.

To understand tornadoes, meterologists dedicate their lives to studying their formation. Some go out on the field to film the supercells that are responsible for making tornadoes. But it's obviously a high-risk job. Last May, a famous Storm-chaser, Tim Samara, was killed doing what he loved best.

Here's what happens: Springtime in the USA means that cold air from Canada meets warmer air coming in from Mexico. Since the two masses of air come from different directions and at different speeds, this creates a vortex between the lower layer of air and the higher air. The vortex is horizontal; however, it can be tilted upwards until it forms a funnel cloud, which you probably recognize as the tail of a tornado. To understand more, watch the video below by Science America.

But why do the US have so many tornadoes? They have over 1000 tornadoes per year, making them the planet's favorite tornado place, being that the second is Canada (more than 100 tornadoes per year). Well, it's because of the convergence of air from the Gulf of Mexico and Canada and the enormous difference of temperature between them. The temperature shock creates greater winds, which in turn create thunderstorm supercells, nearly essential for tornadoes. Furthermore, the two American mountain ranges (the Appalachians and the Rockies) channel the convergence of the two air masses over the giant plains that stretch across the Midwest. This combination is so dangerous that part of this area is called the Tornado Alley.

Tornado alley by NOAA.

But tornadoes can be seen in nearly all parts of the world, such as demonstrated by the video below of a waterspout in Florianopolis, Brazil, in 2008.

Sometimes I wonder if the reason that we're truly fascinated by tornadoes isn't because they're great and powerful- it's because they have the power to kill us, and because we're naturally fascinated with everything that can kill us. Just like Formula One- nobody really watches it for the race itself.  You watch it because people race each other in combustible machines that reach 270 km/h. It's the brush with death that captivates us.

But that's another story.

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