Talk:Tornado

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Previously commented-out text

I just liberated long portions of text that were commented out because they were unreliable. Unfortunately, no one can fix those if no one can see them. I tagged those for accuracy problem; we'll have to parse through these sections and find references and separate good info from bad. -- Beland 05:31, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Splitting

I have split off two articles, one for climatology, and one for damage and intensity. The todo list and some comments above may now apply more to the subarticles than this one, per se.

This article is still 51K long, which is longer than recommended. Some material is probably redundant between sections, and could be cut down. Other material could be moved to subarticles, making the summaries left behind here more concise. -- Beland 06:12, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

This is one project I have been procrastinating majorly on. I did manage to fork out a few articles (mostly ones that already existed), but yes it has been cumbersomely long recently. Hopefully once winter break starts up I will have time to do more. -Runningonbrains 15:20, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

It looks to be manageably long now, especially for an article with such breadth. A lot of the 52K is photos, references, and external links. I suppose it could be cut a bit more, but also a few more things could be added. I'll see what I can do over the next few weeks. -Runningonbrains 23:52, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

UK - world's tornado alley?

I've heard it oft quoted but NEVER with a source, that the UK gets more tornadoes per square km than any other country in the world... Now, I've looked but I can't seem to find anything but hearsay, any confirmation? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 86.131.159.19 (talk) 01:08, 9 December 2006 (UTC).

Shear funnel vs. Cold air vortex

Really, is there any difference? -Runningonbrains 04:30, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

Vandalism on Tornado and Thunderstorm

There is a bit of vandalism here, and as I have no admin powers, I can't efficiently revert it. Could someone take care of this? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Cormallen (talk • contribs) 14:56, 11 January 2007 (UTC). (sorry for the unsigned comment)

GA Passed

Congrats, it's a Good Article! :-) For "next up" projects I would reccomend expansion of the Climatology section, and also addition of the Enhanced Fujita Scale. - Aerobird ^{Target locked - Fox One!} 01:14, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

UK - World's Tornado Alley?

I have lived in the UK all my life and I've never personally witnessed a tornado myself, but I've seen recent news reports about tornadoes and a documentary that confirms that the UK has, on average, 33 tornadoes a year. That's more than Central United States, it's just that most British tornadoes occur out in the countryside where they don't do too much damage and probably don't last as long.

The United States can be said to have the most of the severe tornadoes, but the UK appears to have the most overall. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Rabbitlover (talk • contribs) 19:32, 18 January 2007 (UTC).

Actually, it's not as much as the central US. Oklahoma, for example, has an area of 181,200 square kilometers, and averages 58 tornadoes a year[1], about 0.00032 tornadoes per square kilometer per year. It is also believed that the actual number is higher, as most of the state's population is in sprawling urban and suburban areas like Oklahoma City and its suburbs, so many weak tornadoes go unobserved. The United Kingdom has an area of 244,800 km², with an average number of officially reported tornadoes of 33. However, TORRO believes the actual number to be around 50, so i'll use that. This leads to an average of 0.0002 tornadoes per km² per year, only about 60% of Oklahoma's official count.

The reason they get more coverage may be that weak twisters are big news in the very densely populated UK (243 people per km²), while not as important in a rural state like Oklahoma (30.5 per km²). The same thing happens where I live in New England, where even occasional weak tornadoes are big news, as someone is bound to see them.

As a side note, I believe that Netherlands has the most tornadoes per area per year in Europe. I dont know the numbers though. Hope all this was useful! -Runningonbrains 20:56, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

The only state in the USA that hasn't been reported as having tornadoes is Alaska. I'm pretty sure. The most tornadoes in tornado alley are in Texas and Oklahoma.

Anon Vandalism...

...Has been getting rediculous. I'm fed up, so I put the page up for semi-protection. -Runningonbrains 16:38, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Very Helpful!

I happen to live in tornado alley (TX) and I thought this was very useful info. I also love this site!! I am in 7th grade and doing a project for science over avalanches. This website helps with everything!! —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Bandgeek3377 (talk • contribs) 01:12, 2 February 2007 (UTC).

Torndao alley

The article on Tornado alley appears short enough to add to this article. I don;t know enough of the history about these two seperate articles to know if they where prevoiusly on one page. If not how about adding the tornado alley atricle to the see also section. There are a few links here and there but they could easily could be missed. Natural number is e 18:01, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

This article is almost too long as is, and Tornado alley stands on its own just fine. My next project is to get all the sub-articles of Tornado to GA-class, so I'd definately leave it as is. As for being in the see also section, it is already linked to in the climatology section, so I'll leave it out. Thanks for your input! -RunningOnBrains 22:43, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

Tornado Myths

This section says

"Similarly, an old belief was that the southwest corner of a basement provides the 
most protection during a tornado. In actuality, the safest place is in the northeast 
corner of an underground room"

I believe this is inaccurate, as the safest location would vary depending on the approach direction of the tornado. It seems to me that the safest place in the building would certainly be underground, but in whatever corner is closest to the tornado as it approaches. The damage would be least there, since the tornado would cross it first and therefore have the least time to "dig down" to people sheltering there.

Can anyone validate or invalidate the claim that's on the main page?

*Septegram*Talk*Contributions* 13:40, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

It's true, as seen in the reference. You can also find it online here. You are right though, it does depend on the direction of the tornado's approach, I have changed the wording accordingly. -RunningOnBrains 18:38, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, I found that link too; I just haven't had time to get back here. Thanks for taking care of it.

*Septegram*Talk*Contributions* 19:35, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

I have been told that if you place a jar of water outside, it will freeze during a tornado. Is this true?

No. -RunningOnBrains 21:32, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

No single actionable advice is applicale in all cases, so we must advise what is best in the most situations. In general, the center on the lowest floor with as many walls between the outside is the way to go. Reinforced rooms like bathrooms with pipes and heavier construted walls and floors are better than other rooms. Also, if possible, a heavy bench or other form of protection is advisable against falling debris. Although the safest place usually is the basement, on occasion people are killed by falling chimneys or other debris when they may have surived otherwise (in most cases, they would have been safer below ground than above ground, however). Debris tends to collect in the corners of basements, so no corner is preferable in the majority of situations. The as many walls in the center in a sturdy room advice is applicable when a below ground shelter is not available. Evolauxia 12:49, 21 March 2007 (UTC)