Harrison WorldLAB Symposium

Topic:Tornadoes

Group Members:Amber, Sarah, Jenny

Question guiding the project: How are tornados formed and what conditions do they form under?

Overview of the three required learning activities:

1. Sci-trek
2. Call weather station
3. Go to Fern Bank

Findings (list):

1.Stormy weather when cool and warm air/wind meet causing them to mix with violent winds moving them at very high speeds.
2.They extend down from a mass of dark clouds.
3.They are made of clouds with strong winds roatating clockwise or counterclockwise.
4.Tornadoes are most common and strongest in temperate latitudes, and in the U.S. they tend to form most frequently in the early spring.
5.The "tornado season" shifts toward later months with increasing latitude.
6.Extends down from a cumunlonimbus cloud.
7.Can be a few meters to about a kilometer wide where it touches the ground, with an average width of a few hundred meters.
8.The funnel is made visible by the dust sucked up and by condensation of water droplets in the center of the funnel.
9.Always associated with violent motions in the atmosphere, including strong up drafts and the passage of fronts.
10.They develop within low-pressure areas of high winds.

Conclusion: Was hypothesis proven correct, or incorrect - OR how was question answered: We found out that tornadoes form under the conditions of stormy weather when cool and warm winds meet causing them to mix with violent wind. They usually extend from a mass of dark cumulonimbus clouds.

Questions raised for further study:

1. How do the winds get up to such high speeds?

2. Can tornadoes cause other storms?

3. How do they actually form a funnel?