tornado

A rotating column of air, funnel-like in appearance, endowed with a great angular velocity, that hangs down from a vertically developed cloud (in most cases a cumulonimbus associated with a supercell storm) and reaches the Earth's surface. It is visible thanks to the condensation funnel (which does not always reach the ground) and the dust and countless objects it sucks up as it passes, which it previously rips from the ground. It is the most violent mesoscale meteorological phenomenon of all those that form on Earth; the one that concentrates the greatest amount of energy in the smallest space. The pressure inside it is estimated to be between 100 and 200 hPa lower than outside it. Both its size and its duration are highly variable. Its diameter can range from a few meters (microtornado) to several kilometers, in the most exceptional cases. The typical diameter is on the order of a hundred meters. Its duration is short; from barely a few seconds to an hour. The wind gusts it generates around it are extraordinary; in the most intense ones, on the order of 500 km/h, causing total devastation across the whole strip of terrain it travels over (distances ranging from barely a few hundred meters to several hundred kilometers in some cases). Its typical speed of movement is between 50 and 80 km/h. Apart from the winds generated by the tornado as it passes, the multicellular storms and supercells from which many of them descend give rise to violent downpours, hail, and strong lightning activity. Occasionally, so-called multi-vortex tornadoes form, whose main peculiarity is that they simultaneously present two or more condensation funnels and/or debris clouds (dust, branches, splintered wooden boards...).