Informative Essay: Tornadoes In The United States

Head for Cover!

Now being a senior, I understand what a tornado is and what they do. At Smithville High School we have come close to having tornadoes and kids had been pulled out of school as their parents wanted to be with them to make sure they were safe with their family, but they have never touched or harmed anyone. They seem very scary to be apart of and I know a few of my family members have come in contact with them. Even though people know what tornadoes are, I don’t believe everyone knows how to handle them and how their safety is a huge issue as tornadoes have developed over the years. Tornadoes are dangerous creatures of the sky. They split houses and families apart. There is nothing we can do about them, but we can be ready for

This area is in a L-shaped area stretching across western Iowa down through Nebraska and Kansas to southern Oklahoma and then to Arkansas and Louisiana to southeastern Mississippi. In this area a tornado could be expected to touch down in the exact same spot every 4,000 to 10,000 years between each other (Perkins n.p.).There is also a region called the Bull’s-Eye. This region goes from Texas to South Dakota and includes parts of Colorado. There is also parts of the Gulf coast that are prone to tornadoes like Alabama, Florida, Louisiana. and Mississippi to form the Dixie Alley (Dorko, Peele, & Shah n.p.). A swirling vortex isn’t technically a tornado unless it makes contact with the ground. Also the size of the tornado has nothing to do with it’s strength. There could be a large, weak tornado or there could be a small, strong tornado. The amount of twisters has increased over the decades. The average number has actually increased over a year or so by a dozen. In the 1960s, there was about 650 tornadoes reported and then in 1990s, the average grew up to more than 1,100 tornadoes reported (Perkins n.p.). In the article, meteorologist Joseph T. Shafer said that, “the reason for the rapid increase in numbers isn’t because of climate change, it’s because of people change” (Perkins n.p.). With that being said what Shafer means is that as people move out of cities and go to the next they are more likely to spot tornadoes and the increase in media use has caused people to be more weather-aware and they are more likely to report these whirlwinds of terror. A bunch of meteorologists also got together and did some research and discovered that there has been a mix of 4 million tornadoes over 30,000 years (Perkins