Fujita Scale | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Intensity of tornadoes |  Automatic translation | Updated June 01, 2013 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Tornadoes are formed when the cumulonimbus bodies of warm and cold air meet. The contrasts in temperature cause the severe weather in twisting large cloud masses slowly on itself. Is created inside the cloud of upward movements of air that can reach impressive speeds. The Fujita scale is used to estimate the intensity of a tornado. The Fujita scale, or Fujita-Pearson scale, is a scale that ranks tornadoes by severity, depending on the damage they cause. The Fujita Scale was created in 1971 by the American researcher Tetsuya Theodore Fujita, meteorologist in collaboration with Allan Pearson, the Storm Prediction Center (forecast severe thunderstorms) in the United States. It was immediately adopted by the scientific community and weather. | - The force F3 is winds from 250 to 330 km/h. The damage is observed, walls and roofs of buildings into the air, forests cut down... |  Image: More than 1 200 tornadoes develop each year in the United States, twenty reached levels 4 or 5 of the Fujita scale. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Enhanced Fujita Scale | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
NB: The powerful tornado 2 km wide, 20 May 2013 at 15H destroyed hundreds of homes in Moore, a suburb of Oklahoma City (24 dead and 237 injured). Winds reached 320 km / h, which ranks in the force EF4 tornado on the Enhanced Fujita scale. Tornado Alley region of the United States (between the Rockies and the Appalachians) where tornadoes occur frequently (see picture against). The states of Oklahoma, Kansas, Arkansas, Iowa and Missouri are fully in Tornado Alley. Other parts of the world endure frequent tornadoes, particularly southern Africa, parts of Argentina, Paraguay and southern Brazil, Germany, Poland, Australia and New Zealand and the Ganges delta. | - EF0: Parties partially removed roof (tile, shingles), gutters, chimneys and damaged cladding... |  Image: The "Tornado Alley" in the United States (in pink). The cold continental air coming from the West, mingles with the most hot and dry Sonoran Desert of the southwestern United States air and the hot and humid coming from the Gulf of Mexico. The whole gives an unstable air mass that develops powerful storms and tornadoes. Image credit: public domain. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Tornadoes | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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 | Image: Aerial view of the destruction of the city of Moore after the passage of the tornado that hit the area south of Oklahoma City, Monday, May 20, 2013. This image shows the extent of damage that can cause EF5 tornado on the Fujita scale as it passes over the houses. The winds of the storm reached 320 km / h, crushing the houses that were on their way. We note here through the enlarged picture, and a trail of debris from both sides just a few meters, the rows of houses spared. Image Credit: CNN |  | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
