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Portal:Tornadoes

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The Tornadoes Portal

A tornado near Anadarko, Oklahoma, in 1999
Tornadoes are violently rotating columns of air that are in contact with the Earth and either a cumulonimbus or a cumulus cloud. Tornadoes are often referred to as twisters, whirlwinds, or cyclones. While most tornadoes attain winds of less than 110 miles per hour (180 km/h), are about 250 feet (80 m) across, and travel a few miles (several kilometers), the wind speeds in the most intense tornadoes can reach 300 miles per hour (480 km/h), are more than two miles (3 km) in diameter, and stay on the ground for dozens of miles (more than 100 km). Various types of tornadoes include the multiple vortex tornado, landspout, and waterspout. Other tornado-like phenomena that exist in nature include the gustnado, dust devil, fire whirl, and steam devil. Most tornadoes occur in North America (in the United States and Canada), concentrated in a region nicknamed the Tornado Alley. Tornadoes also occur in South America, South Africa, Europe, Asia, and Oceania.
The intensifying extratropical cyclone responsible for the blizzard over the Northeastern United States, at 2:15 a.m. EST (07:15 UTC) on January 23, 2016

The January 2016 United States blizzard produced up to 3 ft (91 cm) of snow in parts of the Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern United States during January 22–24, 2016. A weather system, evolving from a shortwave trough that formed in the Pacific Northwest on January 19, consolidated into a defined low-pressure area on January 21 over Texas. Meteorologists indicated that a resultant storm could produce more than 2 ft (61 cm) of snow across a wide swath of the Mid-Atlantic region and could "paralyze the eastern third of the nation", and regarded it as a "potentially historic blizzard". Winter weather expert Paul Kocin described the blizzard as "kind of a top-10 snowstorm".

On January 20–22, the governors of eleven states and the mayor of Washington, D.C., declared a state of emergency in anticipation of significant snowfall and blizzard conditions. Approximately 103 million people were affected by the storm, with 33 million people placed under blizzard warnings. More than 13,000 flights were cancelled in relation to the storm, with effects rippling internationally. Thousands of National Guardsmen were placed on standby, and states deployed millions of gallons of brine and thousands of tons of road salt to lessen the storm's effect on roadways. A travel ban was instituted for New York City and Newark, New Jersey, for January 23–24. The storm was given various unofficial names, including Winter Storm Jonas, Blizzard of 2016, and Snowzilla. (Full article...)
List of selected tornado articles

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This is a list of all tornadoes that were confirmed by local offices of the National Weather Service in the United States from May to June 2012. (Full article...)
List of selected tornado lists

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The structure of a supercell thunderstorm

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Map of all tornadoes in the United States during 1999

This page documents the tornadoes and tornado outbreaks of 1999, primarily (but not entirely) in the United States. Most tornadoes form in the U.S., although some events may take place internationally, particularly in parts of neighboring southern Canada during the Northern Hemisphere's summer season, as well as Europe. One particular event, the Bridge Creek-Moore, Oklahoma F5 tornado, produced the highest wind speed ever recorded on Earth, which was 301 ± 20 mph (484 ± 32 km/h).

(Full article...)
List of tornadoes by year

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2024 tornado activity

Map of tornado warnings and confirmed tornadoes from the outbreak

A large, deadly and major tornado outbreak occurred across the Central and Southern United States from May 6–10, 2024, as a result of a slow-moving trough that was moving across the country. The Storm Prediction Center (SPC) issued a tornado-driven high risk convective outlook for portions of central Oklahoma and extreme southern Kansas early on May 6. Millions of people were put under a particularly dangerous situation (PDS) tornado watch later that evening, as many tornadoes were reported across the region, particularly in Oklahoma, where a violent EF4 tornado struck the towns of Barnsdall and Bartlesville, Oklahoma. Severe and tornadic weather spread eastward over the Mississippi, Ohio, and Tennessee Valleys over the next two days, with a nocturnal outbreak occurring in the latter on May 8, as tornadic supercell thunderstorms produced many tornadoes across the states of Tennessee, northern Alabama and western Georgia. The system responsible for the outbreak finally moved offshore by May 10 after producing several more tornadoes across the Southeast, including 2 EF2 tornadoes and hurricane-strength straight-line winds that moved through Tallahassee. This large outbreak came less than two weeks after a similarly large and deadly outbreak occurred across most of the same regions.

Three fatalities directly linked to the tornadoes have been confirmed so far, with the majority in Oklahoma; one tornadic death also occurred in Tennessee on May 8. Three non-tornadic deaths related to straight-line winds also occurred. In addition, during the course of the outbreak, tornado emergencies were issued for three consecutive days between May 6–8 for damaging tornadoes; the last time that this phenomenon had occurred was exactly 21 years prior, where tornado emergencies were issued for four consecutive days between May 6–9, 2003, during a similarly large outbreak.

167 tornadoes have been confirmed from the outbreak overall, most of which were clustered around Oklahoma, Michigan, Tennessee, and Alabama, earning 51 points on the outbreak intensity score. (Full article...)

Tornado anniversaries

June 12

  • 1899 – An F5 tornado, one of the deadliest in U.S. history, devastated much of New Richmond, Wisconsin, leveling numerous buildings and killing 117 people. The high death toll was in part due to about 1,000 people visiting from out of town to attend a circus, which ended about an hour before the tornado formed.
  • 1942 – An F4 tornado moved erratically through the southwest side of Oklahoma City, destroying more than 70 homes and killing 35 people.

June 13

  • 1968 – An F5 tornado struck Tracy, Minnesota, killing nine people, injuring 125, and destroying 111 homes, some of which were swept away.
  • 1981 – Widely scattered tornadoes touched down across much of the United States, from Texas to Minnesota, Ohio, and Florida. An F3 tornado destroyed most of downtown Cardington, Ohio, including 100 homes, 50 businesses, and an apartment complex. Four people were killed and 56 were injured.

June 14

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The following are images from various tornado-related articles on Wikipedia.

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This is either a featured article or featured list, which represents some of the best articles on English Wikipedia.

Picture of a house destroyed by the Wallingford Tornado of 1878

Although historically the U.S. state of Connecticut is not typically known to fall casualty to tornadoes, more than 100 of these powerful storms have affected the state in modern history, resulting in at least 48 deaths, 780 injuries, and more than $500 million in damage. This list of tornadoes in the state is likely incomplete, as official records date back only to 1950 for tornadoes in the United States.

As with most of the northeastern United States, the number of tornadoes peaks in the summer months, normally in July or August. Hartford County has had the most tornadoes in the state, although since 1950 Litchfield County has reported the most tornadoes. Several areas have been struck more than once, and Waterbury has been struck by no less than four tornadoes since 1955. (Full article...)

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The scope of WikiProject Severe weather is to write articles about severe weather, namely thunderstorms and tornadoes. Their talk page is located here.

WikiProject Weather is the main hub for all articles that are weather-related. WikiProject Weather strives to improve articles in a variety of weather topics, including Tropical Cyclones, Severe Weather, General meteorology, Non-tropical Storms, Climate, Floods, Droughts and wildfires, Meteorological instruments and data, Meteorological Biographies, and Space Weather. If you would like to help, please visit the project talk page.

WikiProject Meteorology is a collaborative effort by dozens of Wikipedians to improve the quality of meteorology- and weather-related articles. If you would like to help, visit the project talk page, and see what needs doing. The project is currently being merged into WikiProject Weather.

WikiProject Tropical cyclones is a daughter project of WikiProject meteorology. The dozens of semi-active members and several full-time members focus on improving Wikipedia's coverage of tropical cyclones.

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