Atmospheric vortex in the form of a giant dark trunk. Source: Great Soviet Encyclopedia. Dahl's Explanatory Dictionary

Tornado, atmospheric vortex arising in thundercloud and then spreading in the form of a dark sleeve or trunk towards the surface of land or sea; in the upper part it has a funnel-shaped expansion, merging with the clouds. When the S. descends to the earth's surface, its lower part also becomes expanded, similar to an overturned funnel. S.'s height can reach 800-1500 m. The air in it usually rotates counterclockwise, and at the same time it rises in a spiral upward, drawing in dust or water; rotation speed - several tens m v sec. Due to the fact that the air pressure inside the vortex decreases, condensation of water vapor occurs there; this, together with the retracted part of the cloud, dust and water, makes the S. visible. The diameter of S. over the sea is measured in tens m, over land - hundreds m.

WITH. usually arises in the warm sector of the cyclone, more often in front of the cold front and moves in the same direction in which the cyclone moves (movement speed 10-20 m / sec). During its existence, S. has covered a path 40-60 km. S.'s education is associated with a particularly strong instability stratification of the atmosphere.

S. is accompanied by thunderstorms, rain, hail and, if it reaches the surface of the earth, almost always produces great destruction, sucking in water and objects encountered in its path, lifting them high up and carrying them over considerable distances. S. at sea is a great danger to ships. S. over land is sometimes called blood clots, in the United States they are called tornadoes.

A tornado (or tornado) is an atmospheric vortex that occurs in a cumulonimbus (thunderstorm) cloud and spreads down, often to the very surface of the earth, in the form of a cloud sleeve or trunk tens and hundreds of meters in diameter. Sometimes a whirlwind formed on the sea is called a tornado, and on land - a tornado. Atmospheric vortices, similar to tornadoes, but formed in Europe, are called thrombi. But more often than not, all of these three concepts are considered synonymous. The form of tornadoes can be diverse - a column, a cone, a glass, a barrel, a whip-like rope, an hourglass, horns of the "devil", etc., but most often tornadoes have the shape of a rotating trunk, pipe or funnel hanging from the mother's cloud. Typically, the transverse diameter of the tornado funnel in the lower section is 300-400 m, although if the tornado touches the water surface, this value can be only 20-30 m, and when the funnel passes over the land, it can reach 1.5-3 km. Inside the funnel, the air descends, and outside it rises, rotating rapidly, creating an area of ​​highly rarefied air. The vacuum is so significant that closed objects filled with gas, including buildings, can explode from the inside due to pressure differences. Determining the speed of air movement in the funnel is still a serious problem. Basically, estimates of this value are known from indirect observations. Depending on the intensity of the vortex, the flow velocity in it can vary. It is believed that it exceeds 18 m / s and can, according to some indirect estimates, reach 1300 km / h. The tornado itself moves along with the cloud that generates it. The energy of a typical tornado with a radius of 1 km and average speed 70 m / s is equal to the energy of a reference atomic bomb of 20 kilotons of TNT, similar to the first atomic bomb blown up by the United States during the Trinity test in New Mexico on July 16, 1945. In the Northern Hemisphere, air in tornadoes rotates, as a rule, counterclockwise. The reasons for the formation of tornadoes have not yet been fully understood. Only a few general information, most characteristic of typical tornadoes. Tornadoes often form at tropospheric fronts - interfaces in the lower 10-kilometer layer of the atmosphere, which separate air masses with different wind speeds, temperatures and air humidity. Tornadoes go through three main stages in their development. At the initial stage, an initial funnel appears from the thundercloud, hanging above the ground. Cold layers of air located directly under the cloud rush down to replace warm ones, which, in turn, rise up. (such an unstable system is usually formed when two atmospheric fronts- warm and cold). The potential energy of this system is converted into kinetic energy rotary motion air. The speed of this movement increases, and it takes on its classic look. The rotational speed increases over time, while in the center of the tornado, the air begins to intensively rise upward. This is how the second stage of the tornado's existence proceeds - the stage of the formed vortex of maximum power. The tornado is fully formed and moves in different directions. The final stage is the destruction of the vortex. The power of the tornado weakens, the funnel narrows and breaks away from the surface of the earth, gradually rising back into the mother cloud. What is happening inside the tornado? In 1930, in Kansas, a farmer about to descend into a cellar suddenly saw a tornado moving in his direction. There was nowhere to go, and the man jumped into the cellar. And here he was incredibly lucky - the foot of the tornado suddenly lifted off the ground and swept over the head of the lucky one. Later, when the farmer came to his senses, he described what he saw as follows: “The big shaggy end of the funnel hung right over my head. Everything around was motionless. A hissing sound came from the funnel. I looked up and saw the very heart of the tornado. In its middle there was a cavity with a diameter of 30-70 meters, going up about a kilometer. The walls of the cavity were formed by rotating clouds, and the cavity itself was illuminated by a continuous blaze of lightning, jumping from one wall to another in a zigzag ... ”. And here is another similar case. In 1951, in Texas, a tornado that approached a man tore off the ground and swept six meters above his head. According to the witness, the width of the inner cavity was about 130 meters, the thickness of the walls was about 3 meters. And inside the cavity a transparent cloud glowed with blue light. Many witness testimonies have survived, claiming that at some moments the entire surface of the tornado column began to glow with a strange glow of yellow tones. Tornadoes also generate strong electromagnetic fields and are accompanied by lightning. Ball lightning in tornadoes was observed repeatedly. In tornadoes, not only glowing balls are observed, but also glowing clouds, spots, rotating stripes, and sometimes rings. It is obvious that the glow inside the tornado is associated with turbulent eddies of various shapes and sizes. Sometimes the whole tornado glows with yellow light. In tornadoes, currents of tremendous strength often develop. They are discharged by countless lightnings (regular and ball) or lead to the appearance of a luminous plasma that covers the entire surface of the tornado and ignites the objects that fall into it. The famous researcher Camille Flammarion, having studied 119 tornadoes, came to the conclusion that in 70 cases the presence of electricity in them was undoubted, and in 49 cases "there was no trace of electricity in them, or at least it did not appear." The properties of plasma, sometimes enveloping tornadoes, are much less well known. There is no doubt that some objects near the destruction zone are burnt, charred or dried up. K. Flammarion wrote that the tornado that devastated Chateau (France) in 1839 "... scorched the trees that were on the sides of its path, and those that stood on this path were uprooted. The whirlwind affected the scorched trees. only from one side, on which all the leaves and branches not only turned yellow, but also dried up, and the other side remained untouched and turned green as before. " After a tornado that devastated Moscow in 1904, many of the fallen trees were badly burned. It turns out air vortices are not just the rotation of air around some axis. This is a complex energetic process. It happens that people who are not touched by a tornado, for no apparent reason, fall dead. Apparently, in these cases, people are killed by high-frequency currents. This is confirmed by the fact that sockets, receivers and other devices fail in the surviving houses, and clocks begin to run incorrectly. The largest number of tornadoes is recorded on the North American continent, especially in the central states of the United States (there is even a term - Tornado Alley. This is the historical name of the central American states in which there is the largest number tornado), less in the eastern states of the United States. In the south, in the state of Florida off the Florida Keys, tornadoes appear from the sea almost every day, from May to mid-October, for which this area has received the nickname "the land of water tornadoes." In 1969, 395 such eddies were recorded here. Second region the globe, where conditions for the formation of tornadoes arise, is Europe (except for the Iberian Peninsula), and all European territory Russia. Classification of tornadoes Whirlwind This is the most common type of tornado. The funnel looks smooth, thin, and can be quite sinuous. The length of the funnel is much greater than its radius. Weak tornadoes and tornado funnels sinking into the water, as a rule, are whip-like tornadoes. Vague Looks like shaggy, rotating clouds reaching the ground. Sometimes the diameter of such a tornado even exceeds its height. All funnels with a large diameter (over 0.5 km) are vague. These are usually very powerful vortices, often composite. They cause enormous damage due to their large size and very high wind speed. Compound They can consist of two or more separate blood clots around the main central tornado. Such tornadoes can be of almost any power, however, most often they are very powerful tornadoes. They cause significant damage over large areas. Fire These are ordinary tornadoes generated by a cloud formed as a result of a strong fire or volcanic eruption. To characterize the strength of tornadoes in the United States, the Fujita-Pearson scale has been developed, consisting of 7 categories, and the zero (weakest) wind force coincides with the hurricane wind on the Beaufort scale. The Beaufort Scale is a twelve-point scale adopted by the World Meteorological Organization for an approximate assessment of wind speed by its effect on terrestrial objects or by rough seas. Calculated from 0 - Calm to 12 - hurricane. Tornadoes with terrible force sweep over the cities, sweeping them from the face of the Earth along with hundreds of inhabitants. Sometimes the powerful destructive force of this natural element is amplified due to the fact that several tornadoes unite and strike at the same time. The area after a tornado looks like a battlefield after a terrible bombing. For example, on May 30, 1879, two tornadoes, following one after the other at intervals of 20 minutes, destroyed the provincial town of Irving with 300 inhabitants in northern Kansas. One of the convincing testimonies of the enormous power of the tornado is connected with the Irving tornado: a 75 m long steel bridge across the Big Blue River was lifted into the air and twisted like a rope. The remains of the bridge were turned into a dense compact bundle of steel partitions, trusses and ropes, ripped and bent in the most fantastic way. The same tornado passed through Freeman Lake. He ripped four sections of the railway bridge off the concrete supports, lifted them into the air, dragged them about forty feet, and hurled them into the lake. Each one weighed one hundred and fifteen tons! I think that's enough

TORNADO- an atmospheric vortex arising in a thundercloud and spreading downward, often to the very surface of the Earth, in the form of a dark cloud arm or trunk tens and hundreds of meters in diameter. It does not last long, moving with the cloud; can cause great destruction. A tornado over land is also called a thrombus (in the USA - a tornado).

Overview

Tornado

They say money does not fall from the sky. We agree that they do not fall. But on June 17, 1940, in one village of the Gorky Region, on the heads of boys who fell under heavy rain, old silver coins fell. Thin and light, together with large drops of rain, they flew to the ground. A treasure of a thousand coins fell out of a cloud hanging above the ground.

It was subsequently revealed that the coins were indeed buried in the ground in the sixteenth century. The tornado funnel sucked the treasure buried in a cast-iron pot from the ground and lifted it into the cloud. After flying several kilometers, the coins fell to the ground with a clang ...

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The cause of the tornado is still not very clear. In fact, it is part of a huge thundercloud that rotates rapidly around an axis perpendicular to the Earth's surface.

At first, the rotation is noticeable in the vortex cloud itself. Then its funnel-like part hangs down. The funnel gradually lengthens and at some point connects to the ground. It has the form of a column or trunk that expands towards the cloud and narrows towards the ground. The rotation speed of the funnel is sometimes supersonic, the direction of rotation is spiral from bottom to top. This is the reason strange phenomena about which it is said here.

The tornado consists of an internal cavity and walls. The inner cavity is filled with air, which moves down rather slowly. But the wind speed in the walls of the funnel is constantly changing. It can exceed the speed of sound, which is 1200 kilometers per second, and rarely drops to 350 kilometers per second. The dimensions of the funnel depend on the size of the tornado. Its width ranges from two to several tens of meters, its height is from several hundred meters to one and a half kilometers.

The air in the inner cavity is rarefied, the pressure is sharply reduced. Therefore, when it comes into contact with some kind of closed object filled with air with normal pressure, it literally explodes, the air from it rushes into the inner cavity of the tornado. This can happen to an empty wooden house with closed windows and doors: during a tornado, it suddenly shatters into small pieces.

Almost every tornado forms a cascade - a cloud or column of dust, water spray, dry leaves, chips at the base of its funnel. In the famous tornadoes in Nebraska, which occurred in 1955, the width of one cascade reached a kilometer, a height of 250 meters with a funnel width of only 70 meters.

The most reliable shelter from a tornado is underground, in the cellar of a house or in the subway. It is rare for anyone to get into the internal cavity and stay alive. One farmer was very fortunate in 1930. He managed to look into the very heart of the funnel. In its middle there was a cavity 30-70 meters in size, rising up to a distance of one kilometer. The walls of the cavity formed rapidly rotating clouds. It was fancifully illuminated by the continuous blaze of lightning, and fog moved up and down it.

The tornado does not travel too long distances. Approximately 150-220 kilometers. Compared to hurricanes and storms, which travel 1000 times longer, this is very little. The path of the tornado is especially noticeable in the forest, where it leaves behind stripes of windbreak. Sometimes the path is intermittent, as if a tornado moves in jumps. Then the streak of destruction alternates with intact areas.

A spasmodic deadly tornado occurred on August 19, 1845 in France near Rouen. A funnel from the surface of the Seine jumped onto a steep bank, breaking huge trees like straws, then descended into the valley into two small towns, in one of which it destroyed a spinning mill with hundreds of workers, after which it rose again, zigzagged through the forest and finally disintegrated. covering the ground with windbreak, debris, scraps of clothing and scraps of paper.

A tornado is usually accompanied by various atmospheric phenomena - downpour, hail, lightning, rain, as well as sounds similar to the hissing and whistling of thousands of snakes, or the buzzing of millions of bees, the roar of trains or cannon fire. Such sounds are explained by the vibration of air masses rotating in the funnel.

Tornado vortices intensify the formation of ball lightning - luminous balls consisting of gas charged inside with positive and negative electricity. Ball lightning travels slowly and silently. They come in different colors and sizes.

The hailstorm of death is very dangerous. In 1888, a hailstorm the size of a hen's egg fell in Texas. He walked for some 8 minutes, but during this time he covered the valley with a layer of ice pellets of 2 meters. Hail the size of a glass fell in the Yaroslavl region. A striking hailstone was discovered in one of the states of North America in 1894 - inside it was a rather large turtle!

There are also water tornadoes - of a wide variety of sizes and shapes. They can be either transparent small pipes 2-3 meters in diameter, scattering fine water dust, or huge funnels - water pumps pumping up to 120 thousand tons of water into the cloud from the river along with fish, frogs and other river inhabitants - then all this living creatures fall out with rain.

One such rain was described as early as 200 BC. "There were so many frogs that when the inhabitants saw that there were frogs in everything they boiled and fried and in the water for drinking, that they could not put their feet on the ground without crushing the frogs, they fled ..."

Very large clouds create fiery whirlwinds. The cause of their occurrence is a volcanic eruption or a very strong fire. In 1926, lightning struck an oil storage facility in California. The oil burst into flames, and the flames spread to neighboring oil storage facilities. On the second day of the fire, tornadoes broke out. During a burst of fire, a large dense black cloud rose, from which tornado craters hung. One of them lifted a wooden house into the air and moved it to the side 50 meters.

We have already mentioned more than once that a tornado is capable of carrying various objects in the air. This phenomenon is called transference. Transportation is another matter. Here, the transfer is carried out at a distance of tens, or even hundreds, if not more, kilometers. The lighter the object, the greater the distance it is transported. During the tornado of 1904 near Moscow, one boy flew about 5 kilometers. But most often animals fly - chickens, dogs, cats. Cows can fly no more than ten meters. The heaviest animal that fell from the storm cloud with rain was a fish weighing 16 kilograms, which turned out to be alive and jumped on the grass in the meadow at a distance of 30 kilometers from its native reservoir!

In Northern Italy, a very romantic rain fell - with butterflies captured by a tornado in the vicinity of Turin. They flew several hundred kilometers in a thundercloud. In North Africa, a tornado raised many wheat grains and lowered them in the rain in Spain.

Sometimes tornadoes transport fragile things, showing rare prudence and frugality. Mirrors that remain intact, flower pots, books, table lamps, jewelry boxes, photographs are carried through the air.

The most destructive tornadoes and most often occur in the United States. Up to 700 tornadoes occur there per year. Many of them do not do without human casualties. On March 18, 1932, a tornado 350 kilometers long swept across three American states at the speed of a courier train. He bent over a solid lift tower, demolished a reinforced concrete-framed factory building, and turned the workers' village into rubble. During this tornado, 695 people died, and 2027 people were injured.

There are almost no tornadoes where it is always cold or hot - in the polar and equatorial regions. There are few of them in the open oceans. As you can see from the above examples, in Russia they sometimes happen, but quite rarely. Not all of us manage to observe this amazing natural phenomenon.

Tornado - a natural phenomenon tremendous destructive power - mysterious and enigmatic. There are many models of tornado, but even taken together they are not able to explain all the mysteries of this amazing natural phenomenon. There are still no answers to the fundamental questions: Why does a tornado, which in all reference books is defined as an atmospheric vortex, falls to the ground from a height? Is a tornado heavier than air? What is a tornado funnel? What gives its walls such a strong rotation and tremendous destructive force? Why is the tornado resistant?

There is no agreement among researchers even on the most important parameters, such as, for example, the speed of streams in a tornado: remote measurements give values ​​of no more than 400-500 km / h, and numerous indirect evidences clearly indicate the possibility of the existence in a tornado of streams moving from about sound speeds.

It is not only difficult to investigate a tornado, but also dangerous - with direct contact, it destroys not only the measuring equipment, but also the observer. Nevertheless, the "portrait" of the tornado, even if painted in large strokes, does exist. So let's get acquainted with the theory of gravitational-thermal processes, developed by V.V. Kushin in 1984-1986, whose works formed the basis of this article.

So: "A tornado is a part of a thundercloud that rotates rapidly around the vertical axis. At first, the rotation is visible only in the cloud itself, then part of it hangs down in the form of a funnel, which gradually lengthens and finally connects to the ground in the form of a huge pillar - a trunk with a strong rarefaction inside. "

Few had a chance to look inside the tornado. Here is one of such descriptions: “The tornado, approaching the observer, jumped, rose to a height of 6 m and passed over his head. The diameter of the inner cavity was about 130 m, the thickness of the wall was only 3 m. The wall rotated rapidly, the rotation was visible to the very top and went into the cloud. When the tornado passed over the observer's head and again descended to the ground, it touched the house and brushed it away in an instant.

It is characteristic that the border of a tornado is usually very sharply delineated. For example, in the Baltics on September 21, 1967, “a tornado tore out a row of apple trees in the garden, but left the apples hanging intact on the trees of neighboring rows” 2. More impressive cases are known, for example, when both the cowshed and the cow disappeared in a tornado, but the woman who milked her in the barn remained sitting in place and next to her, as before, there was a milk box with milk.

By the variety of its behavior, the tornado is similar to the all-powerful genie, who considers it necessary not only to demonstrate his unprecedented strength, but also to emphasize special dexterity and cunning, sticking straws into wooden chips or plucking chickens from only one side.

Approximate parameters of tornadoes

PHYSICAL NATURE OF DEATH

To develop the theory of tornadoes, the following reliable statement was chosen from a large number of contradictory facts, with which all researchers agree: the tornado funnel always comes to the ground from above, and, “weakened,” rises up again.

According to Archimedes' law, only those objects whose weight is greater than the weight of the air displaced by them can fall in the atmosphere. The air inside the tornado funnel is rarefied, therefore, such a funnel can descend only if its walls are much heavier than air. Let us recall an observer who, by the will of fate, managed to look inside the tornado. According to his estimates, the thickness of the walls was 3 m, and the diameter of the cavity was 130 m. If, based on the nature of the destruction, we assume that the vacuum in the cavity was 0.5 atm, then, as calculations show, such a tornado should have a wall density of more than 7— 8 kg / m 3 - 5-6 times more than air. With different ratios between the diameter of the funnel, the thickness of its walls and the degree of rarefaction in it, the density of the walls of the funnel can be different, but it is necessarily higher than the density of the surrounding air by several, and possibly tens of times.

What can be denser than air in the upper layers of the troposphere, where the tornado originates and from where it “falls” on the ground? Only water and ice. Therefore, the only plausible, in our opinion, is the following hypothesis: the tornado funnel is special form the existence of a powerful rotating stream of rain and hail, coiled into a spiral in the form of a thin conical or cylindrical wall. The mass content of water in the walls of the funnel should be many times greater than the content of air there. In other words, the statements in the literature that the tornado funnel is an air vortex or plasma contradicts the laws of aerostatics; a vortex with purely air walls and rarefaction inside its cavity can only rise upward, as is really always the case with vortices that originate at the surface of the earth.

KINEMATIC AND DYNAMIC FEATURES OF DEATH

If the funnel of a tornado has massive walls, their rotation should lead to the expansion of the funnel and a decrease in air pressure inside it due to the action of centrifugal forces. Expansion occurs as long as the pressure drop D p outside and inside will not balance the action of centrifugal forces.

If you select a site from the wall S, then a force will act on it outside D pS ... Equilibrium with centrifugal forces will come under the condition

D pS = (s v 2 / R) * S ,

where s- mass per unit wall area, v- wall speed, R- the radius of the funnel.

Based on this kinematic condition, it is possible to recreate a theoretical "portrait" of a tornado funnel of average strength: diameter 200 m, height - 1.5-2 km, pressure inside the funnel - 0.4-0.5 atm, rotation speed 100 m / s, the thickness of the wall is 10–20 m, the rain content in the wall is 200–300 thousand tons. The funnel sticks to the earth's surface, tearing off the top cover from it and thus becoming the color of its “prey”. It is capable of lifting objects with a mass of up to 5 t / m 2 and therefore easily carries wagons, cars (in the literature, a case is described when a tornado dropped a cover weighing 300 tons from a water tank). Moreover, if the surface of the earth at the point of contact is smooth, the rotation speed of the funnel changes insignificantly, the equilibrium of the wall with external environment is not disturbed and even in the immediate vicinity of the funnel the wind is not felt (remember how the apples remained intact on the branches almost next to the tornado). Sometimes the balance is disturbed - when an excess flow of rotating rain comes from above, increasing the action of centrifugal forces.

In these cases, a so-called cascade occurs: a funnel that adheres to the ground scatters excess masses around itself with great speed and, as a result, is capable of pushing off even rather large objects.

Especially unusual phenomena occur when the funnel collides with an obstacle. Having a high density and tremendous speed, the funnel inflicts a powerful side impact on the obstacle with a pressure drop of up to 10 atm, breaking trees like matches and destroying buildings. In this case, ruptures are formed in the wall of the funnel with a pressure drop from the outside and from the inside of about 0.5-0.6 atm. Everything that is near the gap is immediately sucked into the funnel (for example, a person is thrown 10-20 m in 1 s and, as a rule, does not even have time to realize what happened to him). Since the speed of rotation of the wall, and, consequently, the speed of movement of the rupture is about 100 m / s, then in 0.1 s it will move by about 10 m. Therefore, of two objects that are in close proximity to each other, one may disappear, and the other may not even feel the breath (as was the case with the disappeared cow and the motionless milkman).

SUPERSONIC VORTEX INSIDE THE FUNNEL

In early studies, on the basis of numerous indirect data, it was argued that the speed of flows in a tornado reaches sonic and even supersonic speeds (therefore, it sticks straws into a tree, rumbles like thousands of tractors, etc.). However, modern location measurements have shown that out of many hundreds of tornadoes, including the most powerful, none had a rotation speed of more than 100-110 m / s. Therefore, in the latest works of leading experts in this field, data on the existence of streams with sound velocities in a tornado are considered erroneous and are simply ignored. If we approach these contradictory data on the basis of the picture developed above, then everything turns out to be much simpler. As soon as a gap is formed in the wall of the tornado upon collision with an obstacle, then an air stream from the outside rushes into it, and its speed v 1 can be estimated by the well-known Bernoulli formula: v 1 = (2D p / Q 0) 1/2... Since the air density Q 0= 1.3 kg / m 3, and the pressure drop D p= 0.5 atm (5 * 104 Pa), then the speed of the stream bursting into the funnel will be 300 m / s. Everything immediately falls into place: a tornado is a two-layer vortex. Location and other observations from the outside cannot penetrate into the funnel and therefore record the speed of rotation of the outer rain wall of the tornado, which, according to the developed theory, is really no more than 100-150 m / s. And all indirect evidence refers to the secondary air vortex, whose speed is close to sound or even exceeds it.

A very important question is where the flow of air that rushed into the funnel is directed. If the funnel falls on a smooth surface (small forest, small potholes or bumps), an annular gap appears between them. The flow entering the inside of the funnel through such a slot is directed towards the axis of the tornado and therefore has no rotation. In this case, the funnel is quickly decelerated both by its friction against the ground and by filling the funnel with a non-rotating secondary flow. In the presence of large obstacles (trees, buildings, large ravines and mounds), gaps are formed around the circumference of the funnel, as already noted. Due to the pressure drop, the decelerated scraps of the wall will move in coiled spirals, as a result of which narrow vertical slots-passages will appear between adjacent scraps, through which external air will rush into the funnel. Since these passages are directed tangentially to the circumference of the funnel, the incoming air swirls around the axis of the tornado in the same direction as the outer wall of the funnel. In these cases, the funnel itself is decelerated, but the secondary vortex acquires rotation, the energy of which can exceed the energy of losses. In such cases, the tornado suddenly acquires special power.

Sometimes scraps of a funnel, formed after colliding with obstacles, close on themselves, and then several smaller funnels are formed in the lower part of the tornado. It should be emphasized that the tornado funnel is a very stable formation, it can exist for a long time, maintain its own rotation - as long as it receives a sufficient amount of a rotating stream of rain from above.

Whether ordinary rain will pour out of a thundercloud, or a tornado funnel (in fact, twisted rain) will fall - all this is determined by the processes in the upper layers of the troposphere. Let's consider these processes.

THE BIRTH OF DEATH

The tornado is the brainchild of a thundercloud. Abundant water vapor trapped in the cloud from the lower layers of the troposphere condense and release the heat of condensation. Due to this, the air turns out to be warmer and lighter than the surrounding drier air, and a powerful ascending stream rushes upward.

The cloud becomes sharply unstable, rapid ascending currents of warm air arise in it, which carry masses of moisture to a height of 12-15 km, and equally rapid cold descending currents, which fall down under the weight of the formed masses of rain and hail, which are strongly cooled in the upper layers of the troposphere ...

Sometimes a thundercloud is formed as a result of an “oblique” collision of warm and cold air currents, as a result of which it acquires rotation around a vertical axis. In such a cloud, the ascending and descending currents are not directed vertically, but are swirled around a common vertical axis, forming a special two-layer vortex 12-15 km high and 3-5 km in diameter, the so-called mesocyclone (Fig. A). A colder and therefore denser downdraft stream, saturated with rain and hail, forms the outer layer of the vortex, and a warm, moist ascending stream is located inside it and rotates in the same direction as the outer layer.

Tornado formation: a - formation of a "constriction" at an altitude of 4-5 km, where the rotating streams in the cloud are divided into an ascending vortex and a whirlwind funnel; b - the appearance of a funnel from the cloud

When at the bottom edge of the vortex cloud accumulates a large number of rotating rain and hail, then they fall out of the cloud downward in the form of a thin-layer conical or cylindrical funnel of a tornado (Fig. b) Intensive formation of hail, large drops and their ejection from the walls of the vortex leads to a sharp decrease in the diameter of the funnel to 1-1.5 km, and also to a sharp increase in the speed of rotation of the walls of the funnel. When the formed funnel becomes heavier than the air displaced by it, it falls to the ground (Fig. C.).

B - the formation of a "cascade" at the base of the funnel; d - the funnel sucked in a portion of water from the ground, its diameter increased to 100-300 m;

This is how an ordinary tornado is born, which exists at the expense of the resources of the mother cloud. It can turn catastrophic, but only under certain conditions. Which ones? To answer this question, we will have to make a small digression.

It is known that the air temperature in the atmosphere gradually decreases with altitude. This is a fundamental property of any gaseous medium in a gravitational field, and it is associated with the fact that the air in the atmosphere is constantly mixing and, when it moves up, it expands and cools (since the pressure drops with height), and when it moves down, it heats up, respectively. Temperature gradient T" is expressed by the well-known formula: T "= - (g / R 0)*[ (x-1) / x ] , where R 0= 287 J / kg, deg - universal gas constant, g- acceleration of gravity, NS Is the adiabatic coefficient. For a diatomic gas, which is air, NS= 1.4, therefore T"= 9.8 deg / km. The total temperature drop is 70-80 o and 50-60-degree frost reigns at an altitude of 12-15 km.

Now, armed with this information, we will try to answer the question posed. We have already said that when it collides with an obstacle, the edge of the funnel breaks and the speed of its rotation increases sharply. Such a vacuum is created inside the funnel that it is able to raise water to a great height directly from the surface of the earth. If water, entering the mother cloud, turns into hail, then the process of water capture can become irrepressible, catastrophic: the more water is raised, the more heat will be released, the more powerful the flow of rising air will be, etc. (Fig. D)

Just 200-300 g of water per 1 m 3 of air is enough so that, due to the release of the heat of the water-ice transition, the air temperature inside the funnel does not fall below 0 o C even at an altitude of 12-15 km, where frost, as we have already said, reaches 60 o C. The sharp temperature difference outside and inside the tornado creates the force that supports the ascending and descending currents in the tornado. As a result, the tornado independently, now independently of the resources of the mother cloud, supplies itself with water, which it needs both to compensate for energy costs and to replenish its loss from the walls. Moreover, the tornado often creates a new cloud above itself, which later accompanies it, would only be in the way of a river, lake, swamp.

It is easy to see that, according to the above calculation, at an altitude of 20 km, frost should sometimes reign about 200sup> oС. The temperature is when oxygen and nitrogen, which are part of the air, turn into a liquid. According to the laws of nature, the atmosphere should have rained from liquid oxygen and nitrogen. If these rains, like ordinary rain, fell on the surface of the Earth, then in contact with it, drops of nitrogen and oxygen would instantly evaporate, like a drop of water that has fallen on it evaporates in a hot frying pan. This is how life on Earth should be according to the inexorable laws of physics. Why isn't this happening? The point is that at an altitude of 15-30 km there is a thin layer with an increased ozone content. This layer absorbs only 5% of the radiation coming from the Sun. However, this turns out to be enough for a tropopause to arise, above which the temperature did not fall with altitude, but increased. The graph of the dependence of temperature change on height above the earth's surface is shown in the figure. It is thanks to this thin layer that the temperature in the atmosphere, even at an altitude of 15-30 km, does not drop below minus 60-80 degrees Celsius, and gardens bloom on the surface of the Earth and birds sing.

All atmospheric processes - cyclones, thunderstorms, anticyclones, tornadoes, hurricanes - hit this "ozone ceiling" and return downward in the form of wind, rain, snow, and hail. If this ceiling is destroyed, then the tropopause will disappear, the troposphere will smoothly pass into the stratosphere, and the temperature here will also drop by 10 degrees for every kilometer of altitude. All atmospheric processes will reach high heights, and the power of the vortices will increase many times. In this case, the temperature of the rain and hail masses discharged downward will sharply drop. This can lead to an overall decrease in the temperature of the Earth's surface. Our ozone roof is fragile. Unfortunately, everything that a person does seems to be specifically aimed at destroying it.

What limits the uncontrollable growth of the power of a catastrophic tornado? In thermodynamic terms, it is a gigantic gravitational-heat machine, in which cold air falls down, doing work A 1, and warm air rises upward, and it takes work to lift it A 2. Due to the higher density of the falling cold air A 1 > A 2. Excess work goes to increase the kinetic energy of the tornado D W... Let us assume that the height of the tornado is H, its cross section S 0, a v 0 is the speed of the air flow that moves upward inside the funnel. Then the change in the kinetic energy of the tornado in 1 s will be expressed by the ratio:

D W = r 0 v 0 S 0 gHD T / T 1

where r 0 = 1.3 kg / m 3 - air density under normal conditions; D T - temperature difference between the ascending and descending streams; T 1 = 300 K - temperature at the Earth's surface. Let's estimate what it can equal D W for a specific tornado, which, for example, has a radius R= 100 m, height H= 15 km, drop D T= 30 K, gas consumption v 0 S 0 = 2.8 * 10 6 m 3 / s. Then for D W a value of 50 GJ / s is obtained. This is a gigantic capacity, 10 times greater than the capacity of the Bratsk hydroelectric power station, and all of its tornado can be spent on destruction. At the same time, however, he must regularly replenish the reserves of his "fuel" - water from the ground. Since the heat capacity of air is 1 kJ / kg * deg, then to create a temperature difference D T= 30 K between flows, the ascending flow must receive at least 150 GJ of thermal energy per second. The warmth of transition water - ice q= 335 kJ / kg, therefore, the tornado must suck in and turn into ice at least 450 tons of water every second. At the same time, it should suck in water quite evenly, since, having captured too much water at once, for example, 2-3 kg / m 3, it will be able to raise its "prey" no higher than 1-2 km, that is, to a height where water will not be able to release the heat of the water-ice transition. Therefore, where there are deep water bodies (seas, large lakes), tornadoes are relatively weak. On the contrary, if there is little water, then the temperature difference between the streams decreases and the tornado withers away from thirst. Therefore, there are no catastrophic tornadoes in arid regions either.

One remark should be made here. In the upstream and downstream flows, the amount of water is approximately the same, and, therefore, the work that is spent on raising the water is completely returned to the flow when the water falls down. Therefore, streams with a very high concentration of water (2-3 kg / m 3 and more) can circulate in a tornado for a long time. but drastic changes concentration of water leads to the emergence of constrictions and, as a consequence, to the destruction of the tornado. Thus, the natural limit for the increase in the tornado's power is the loss of water from the walls during its movement.

ARTIFICIAL DEATH

It happened that human activity accidentally led to the emergence of artificial tornadoes. So, during the fires in Dresden and Hamburg during the bombing of 1944-1945. tornadoes several hundred meters high hung down from the thick clouds formed from the fires. With strong forest fires the appearance of tornadoes was also observed, although they rarely sank to the ground. Experiments were also carried out to create artificial tornadoes. In particular, two successful attempts are known to create tornadoes using very powerful oil burners-meteotrons. One hundred such burners were placed on an area of ​​100 m 2, and when burning 15 tons of oil in 15 minutes, it was possible to obtain dense clouds, from which tornado funnels with a height of about 100 m hung down.

A detailed analysis showed that to excite a tornado, it is more profitable to burn fuel not on the earth's surface, but to preliminarily spray it along the height of the future tornado and continuously feed the funnel with air flows mixed with water and swirling around the vertical axis. The amount of fuel required to excite a powerful artificial tornado is estimated at 500 tons. in view of the problem of providing them with fuel (water!), as well as many environmental problems associated with the creation of powerful GT units.

Of course, the practical development of such gigantic power plants powered by an ecologically ideal source of energy, such as the water of the seas, oceans, rivers, could significantly facilitate the solution of energy problems facing mankind. Indeed, to cover only the increase in energy needs in 2000, it will be necessary to burn in addition to today's costs up to 5 Gt of conventional fuel in the form of oil, gas, coal, uranium. At the same time, the Sun gives the same amount of energy to the earth's seas and oceans in just 30-40 minutes. Therefore, even the widespread use of GT units should not lead to harmful environmental impact on a large scale.

Figuratively speaking, gravitational-thermal power plant using an artificial tornado is gas burner a height of 12-15 km, in which not gas or oil burns, but ordinary water from any natural reservoir, which, turning into ice, gives off all its heat to the air currents, including the heat of the phase transition water - ice... Turbine generators of such an installation can be located both in the upward and downward flows of the tornado. All the released heat is given to the upper layers of the troposphere, and a kind of "ash", "slag" from this process - frozen water (hail) falls down to the surface of the earth. For a power unit of 1 GW, it is necessary to supply 15–20 tons of water to the tornado every second, which will return to the ground in the form of ice and cool the immediate surroundings around the installation. These problems of lowering the ambient temperature in the vicinity of a gas turbine plant require special study. But even without touching upon the issues of the possible use of artificial tornadoes for energy purposes, one can definitely name those areas where it would be useful already now to create powerful artificial tornadoes... These are the areas where typhoons and hurricanes originate. The long-term existence of the tornado will lead to a noticeable decrease in temperature near the Earth's surface and, consequently, to a decrease in the rate of evaporation of water from the ocean. Thus, the process of atmospheric instability in this area will be slowed down and the incipient typhoon will be weakened.

Let's summarize. After all, what is a tornado? From the point of view of a meteorological physicist, a tornado funnel is twisted rain, a previously unknown form of precipitation. For a mechanical physicist, this is an unusual form of a vortex, namely: a two-layer vortex with air-water walls with a sharp difference in the speed and density of both layers. For a heating physicist, a tornado is a gigantic gravitational-heat machine of enormous power, in which powerful air currents are created and maintained by the heat released by water from any natural reservoir when it enters the upper troposphere.

BALL LIGHTNING AND TORNADO
have a common "parent" - the earth's magnetic field

The essence of this idea is as follows.

In the earth's magnetic field (unfortunately, so far also very poorly studied), local vortex, funnel-shaped rotations can occur, by analogy with such rotations in a liquid and gaseous medium. The alleged reasons for the occurrence of such anomalies may be (in this case) powerful electrical discharges occurring in the earth's atmosphere ( line zipper). Rather, in most cases, because I guess others possible reasons such eddies, can serve as inhomogeneities magnetic field earth, and other magnetic anomalies, this is a question for experts in this field.

Around the channel of linear lightning, during its discharge, a very powerful alternating magnetic field appears, which "collapses" after the discharge stops. But this electromagnetic field is not in some isolated vacuum space. It certainly has to interact with the earth's magnetic field! Here is the time to ask the question - what is actually happening at this moment?

In the occurrence of a tornado, the earth's magnetic field also plays a direct, leading role.

More precisely, the magnetic vortices that arise in the environment of the magnetic field of our planet. The reasons for the occurrence of such anomalies can be different, and one of them is the most probable, it is a thunderstorm discharge.

A short-term but powerful enough rotating electromagnetic field appears around the linear lightning channel, which also ceases to exist after the discharge stops. But it is obvious that in this relatively short time, it must interact with the magnetic lines of force surrounding the earth, since the action takes place directly in the environment of the earth's magnetic field

Just as, stirring with a spoon, tea in a glass and removing it, we observe a vortex-like rotation of the liquid for some time. But the case with a glass of water is not very clear and reliable, although it has a certain similarity. A much more accurate idea of ​​what is happening can be given to us by the vortex movements of water (breakers) arising on rivers with a sufficiently fast current.

That is why I assume that local vortex rotations occur from time to time in the magnetic field of our planet, which, unfortunately, have not yet been studied or even specified.

There is not a single source that even hinted at such a phenomenon. Meanwhile, vortex motions are inherent in all environments in our universe. And most often the rotations visible to our eye are only the result of those invisible, electromagnetic and ether-dynamic rotations occurring in nature.

Having studied a sufficiently large number of photographs of a tornado, I came to the conclusion that the basis of any tornado, its initial driving force, is the funnel-shaped rotation of the earth's magnetic field, and not vice versa, as many scientists still believe.

If we consider tornadoes from this point of view, all mysterious and amazing phenomena accompanying it, become obvious and easily explainable. And the speed of rotation of the air in the tornado itself is up to 400 km. in ch.

And its very limited range, it is limited by the size of the magnetic funnel.

And emerging a wide variety of electromagnetic phenomena that arise in the tornado itself and around it.

And it is quite clear that the speed of rotation of the magnetic field in a tornado is hundreds of times higher than the speed of rotation of the air entrained by it.

And it becomes easy to explain the fact that tornadoes most often appear in arid, dusty regions of the world.

Such funnel-shaped rotations of the earth's magnetic field occur everywhere, but they can only manifest themselves in real and in all their strength in dusty areas.

It happens as follows:

A rotating magnetic field electrifies everything that enters its environment, and microscopic dust particles are most suitable for this. Electrified, they are easily carried away, rising along the trunk of the vortex rotation of the magnetic field. While rotating, these dust particles collide with molecules of atmospheric gas and, in turn, carry them along, thus unwinding an air vortex. As an illustrative example, consider several photographs of a tornado:

Isn't it very similar to an electric current in an ordinary conductor? Negatively charged water molecules from a thundercloud "flow" to the plus (earth), and positively charged ones move towards them, to minus (towards the cloud). Only this movement occurs in a rotating alternating magnetic field.

Another proof of this can also serve as the latest observations of American scientists studying tornadoes:

The two most important components of a tornado are confirmed here:

1. The presence of large electric fields with high intensity.
2. Rotating magnetic field.
3. A huge potential difference between the base of the tornado, the ground (plus) and the top of the tornado (minus).

It is this potential difference that creates a vortex magnetic field, from which a tornado is subsequently formed. This rotating magnetic field is funnel-shaped because the upper, expanding part of it revolves around the supposed center of the negative charge accumulated in the thundercloud.

But the conclusions of American scientists are based on the old views, where tornadoes are considered as the movement of convective atmospheric currents, and of course, from this point of view, they are incorrect.

If we consider a tornado as a powerful rotating magnetic field, then its strictly defined local effect becomes understandable.

"The most striking thing, something that science still cannot explain, is that, despite the huge wind speeds, the tornado is highly localized. In other words, it has a clearly defined border - here the wind is hurricane, and a few meters away - calm and smooth Eyewitnesses describe half-destroyed houses (one half is smashed to shreds, in the other on the windowsill the previously left flowers lie quietly), a chicken half plucked by a tornado, etc. "

It can be assumed that the very frequent occurrence of tornadoes in the regions of North America (USA) is a direct consequence of too intensive "aggressive" farming. In conditions when vast areas of the former "prairies" were plowed up, this loamy, dusty soil turned into an ideal "springboard" for the emergence of a tornado. A tornado is strong only when it "absorbs" a sufficient amount of dust microparticles, which, in turn, spin the air flow to high speeds, thus acquiring its destructive force. This is also confirmed by the local Indian tribes. Before the arrival of the European colonialists, there were no problems with tornadoes there.

The review uses materials from the authors:
V. Kushina, I. Polyanskaya, S. Nehamkina, A. Necheporenko
1. Nalivkin D.V. Tornadoes. M., 1984.
2. Mikalajunas MM Tornado of unprecedented power // Man and element-84. M., 1984.
3. Wolfson N.I., Levin L.M. Meteotron as a means of influencing the atmosphere. // M .: Gidrometeoizdat, 1987

Tornado, an atmospheric vortex that occurs in a thundercloud and then spreads in the form of a dark sleeve or trunk towards the surface of the land or sea; in the upper part it has a funnel-shaped expansion, merging with the clouds. When the S. descends to the earth's surface, its lower part also becomes expanded, similar to an overturned funnel. The height of a S. can reach m. The air in it usually rotates counterclockwise, and at the same time it rises in a spiral upward, drawing in dust or water; rotation speed of several tens of meters per second. Due to the fact that the air pressure inside the vortex decreases, condensation of water vapor occurs there; this, together with the retracted part of the cloud, dust and water, makes the S. visible. The diameter of the north is measured in tens of meters over the sea, and in hundreds of meters over land.

A tornado is accompanied by a thunderstorm, rain, hail, and if it reaches the surface of the earth, it almost always produces great destruction, sucking in water and objects encountered in its path, lifting them high up and carrying them over considerable distances. A tornado at sea poses a great danger to ships. A tornado over land is sometimes called blood clots, in the USA they are called tornadoes

Consequences of tornadoes According to statistics, an average of 400 people die from tornadoes every year; and on March 18, 1925, about 700 people died in the states of Illinois, Missouri, Tennessee, Kentucky (USA). In North Dakota, a 1957 tornado destroyed 500 buildings and caused $ 15 million in losses. In our country, the most memorable tornado hit the Ivanovo and Kostroma regions in 1984. He turned over cranes, lifted cars and wagons into the air, destroyed buildings, broke trees like matches and even bent rails. railroad... Its diameter reached 2 km. These phenomena acquire a formidable character, turn into a rampant disaster with catastrophic consequences on the scale of entire states or even several countries. The main reasons for the death and injury of people are the destruction of buildings, falling trees. Accompanying components of tornadoes: floods, storm surge.

The Russian word "tornado" comes from the word "dusk", this is due to the fact that tornadoes accompany the black storm clouds that obscure the sky. The term "tornado" (from the Spanish "tornado", which means "spinning") is sometimes used. The first mention of a tornado in Russia dates back to 1406. Trinity Chronicle reports that under Nizhny Novgorod"the whirlwind is terribly terrible" lifted the team together with the horse and man into the air and carried it away so that they became "invisible byst". The next day, the cart and the dead horse were found hanging on a tree on the other side of the Volga, and the man was missing. A rare incident occurred during a bandy match in Southwest Sweden (Jung borough). A tornado swept over the stadium lifted the goalkeeper together with the goal by several meters. However, he landed safely without sustaining any damage. It turned out that the tornado originated in a zone of heavy snowfall and passed in a narrow strip of only a few hundred meters, but managed to turn a huge barn into chips, and broke telegraph poles like matches, etc.

One of the convincing testimonies of the enormous power of tornadoes is connected with the Irving tornado, which occurred in 1879: a 75 m long steel bridge across the Big Blue River was lifted into the air and twisted like a rope. The remains of the bridge were turned into a dense compact bundle of steel partitions, trusses and ropes, ripped and bent in the most fantastic way. This fact confirms the presence of hypersonic vortices inside the tornado. The Indian villages, located not far from the Brahmaputra River, were hit by a downpour, but along with the streams of water ... fish fell from the sky. This fact was confirmed by the scientist James Principe, who found several fish about 6 cm in size in the brass funnel of the rain gauge in the garden.

In 1940, in the village of Meshchera, Gorky Region, a rain of silver coins was observed. It turned out that during a thunderstorm rain on the territory of the Gorky region, a treasure with coins was washed away. A tornado passing nearby lifted the coins into the air and threw them out near the village of Meshchera. In 1990, a cow collapsed on a Japanese fishing vessel in the Sea of ​​Okhotsk. The ship sank, and rescuers helped the fishermen. The victims assured that several cows fell from the sky at once.

Thunderstorm is an atmospheric phenomenon in which, inside clouds or between a cloud and ground surface electrical discharges of lightning occur, accompanied by thunder. Typically, a thunderstorm forms in powerful cumulonimbus clouds and is associated with heavy rain, hail and heavy wind. A thunderstorm is one of the most dangerous natural phenomena for humans; in terms of the number of registered deaths, only floods lead to large human losses Stages of development of a thundercloud

Tornadoes, like hurricanes and storms, belong to meteorological natural phenomena and pose a serious danger to human life. They cause significant material damage and can lead to loss of life.

On the territory of Russia, tornadoes most often occur in the central regions, the Volga region, in the Urals, in Siberia, on the coasts and in the waters of the Black, Azov, Caspian and Baltic seas.

The most dangerous areas in terms of the risk of tornadoes are the Black Sea coast and the Central Economic Region, including the Moscow Region.

Tornado is an atmospheric vortex that appears in a thundercloud and spreads down, often to the very surface of the Earth, in the form of a dark cloud arm or trunk tens and hundreds of meters in diameter.

In other words, a tornado is a strong vortex in the form of a funnel descending from the cloud base. This vortex is sometimes called a thrombus (provided that it sweeps over land), and in North America it is called a tornado.

In a horizontal section, a tornado is a core surrounded by a vortex, in which there are ascending air currents moving around the core and capable of lifting (sucking) any objects, up to railway cars weighing about 13 tons. The lifting force in a tornado depends on the speed of the wind rotating around kernels. There are also strong downdrafts in the tornado.

Basic part of tornado is a funnel, which is a spiral vortex. In the walls of the tornado, air movement is directed in a spiral and often reaches speeds of up to 200 m / s (720 km / h).

The time of vortex formation is usually calculated in minutes. The total lifetime of a tornado is also calculated in minutes, but sometimes in hours.

The total path length of a tornado can be hundreds of meters and up to hundreds of kilometers. The average width of the destruction zone is 300-500 m. So, in July 1984, a tornado that originated in the north-west of Moscow passed almost to Vologda (a total of 300 km). At the same time, the width of the path of destruction reached 300-500 m.

The destruction caused by a tornado is caused by a huge high-speed pressure of air rotating inside the funnel with a large pressure difference between the periphery and inside funnels due to the tremendous centrifugal force.

The consequences of a tornado in the Ivanovo region

A tornado destroys residential and industrial buildings, breaks power supply and communication lines, disables equipment, and often leads to human casualties.

In 1985, a tornado of enormous strength arose 15 km south of Ivanov, traveled about 100 km, reached the Volga and died down in the forests near Kostroma. In the Ivanovo region alone, 680 residential buildings and 200 industrial and Agriculture... More than 20 people died. Many were injured. Trees were uprooted and broken. Cars after the action of a destructive element turned into a heap of metal.

To assess the destructive power of tornadoes, a special scale has been developed that includes six classes of destruction depending on the wind speed.

Tornado destruction scale

Here is how the tornadoes that swept over the state of Kansas (USA) on May 29 and 30, 1879 were described by the meteorologist John Fineley, who followed their fresh footsteps: “In those days, a huge thundercloud thickened over the Kansas prairie, giving rise to a dozen tornadoes. The most rabid of them arose on May 30 near the town of Randolph. There, at 4 o'clock in the afternoon, two black clouds hung over the ground. They collided, merged into one and immediately began to rotate at an insane speed, spitting rain and hail. Within a quarter of an hour, a funnel similar to a giant elephant trunk descended from this ominous cloud to the ground. It spun and twisted and sucked in everything and everyone. Then a second trunk appeared nearby, somewhat smaller, but of the same frightening appearance. They both moved towards Randolph, ripping grass and bushes out of the ground, leaving behind a wide strip of dead, bare earth. Some of the farmhouses caught in the tornado's path had roofs ripped off. Sheds and chicken coops were sucked into funnels and carried away into the sky or turned into a scattering of broken boards "(quoted from: Vorobyov Yu. L., Ivanov V. V., Sholokh V. P. Reading book on the basics of life safety for grade 7 educational institutions... - M .: ACT - LTD, 1998).

Predicting tornadoes is extremely difficult. Usually they are guided by the fact that tornadoes can occur in any of those areas where they have already occurred before. Therefore, general measures to reduce damage from tornadoes are taken the same as from hurricanes and storms.

Upon receipt of information about the approach of a tornado or its detection by outward signs you should leave all forms of transport and take refuge in the nearest basement, shelter, ravine, or lie on the bottom of any depression and cuddle to the ground.

During a tornado, it is best to hide in a safe shelter.

When choosing a place for protection from a tornado, it should be remembered that this natural phenomenon is often accompanied by the fall of intense rainfall and large hail. Therefore, it is advisable to provide protection measures against these meteorological phenomena.

Check yourself

1. What is a tornado as a meteorological phenomenon?
2. What is the danger of a tornado for human life?
3. Describe the signs of a tornado.

After school

In your security diary, describe the cases of tornadoes known to you and their consequences. If you are unable to provide examples, we advise you to seek help from the media or the Internet.

Workshop

Formulate the rules of personal safety for a person caught in the tornado's zone of action. Justify your answer.