Building the plains...
Tornadoes are rapidly rotating columns of air connecting a cumulonimbus cloud to the ground, driven by a rotating mesocyclone within a supercell thunderstorm. The pressure deficit near the core can exceed 100 mbar, and the most violent EF5 events carry winds over 480 km/h. The same fluid-dynamics principles — vorticity stretching, pressure-gradient inflow, and angular-momentum conservation — underpin weather forecasting, wind-engineering of buildings, and the design of cyclone separators in industry.
Why do the inner particles spin faster than the outer ones?
Because angular momentum is conserved: as air spirals inward to a smaller radius, its rotational speed must increase. The simulation models this with an angular velocity that scales inversely with radial distance from the core.
By the Enhanced Fujita (EF) scale, from EF0 (winds ~105–137 km/h) to EF5 (over 320 km/h). The rating is assigned from observed damage rather than measured wind, since direct measurement inside a tornado is rare and dangerous.
The strongest measured tornado winds, recorded by Doppler radar near Bridge Creek–Moore, Oklahoma in 1999, reached roughly 484 km/h (about 301 mph), among the highest wind speeds ever observed on Earth.
The visible condensation funnel forms when the pressure drop in the core cools the air below its dew point, condensing water vapour into cloud droplets. Dust and debris lifted from the surface make the lower part visible too.
Yes. Click and drag on the canvas to reposition the vortex centre, mimicking how a real tornado tracks across the landscape as its parent storm moves.
The United States records the most, around 1,200 per year, concentrated in "Tornado Alley" where warm, moist Gulf air collides with cool, dry continental air to spawn the supercells that breed tornadoes.