Questions people actually ask
Short answers, each with its source. Longer ones live on the topic pages.
What is a tornado?
A tornado is a narrow, violently rotating column of air that reaches from a thunderstorm down to the ground. NOAA NSSL: Tornado basics By definition, a tornado must touch the ground and a storm cloud at the same time. So “tornado on the ground” says the same thing twice. NOAA Storm Prediction Center: The online tornado FAQ
What’s the difference between a tornado and a funnel cloud?
A spinning funnel that hangs from the cloud but doesn’t reach the ground is a funnel cloud. Once it touches the ground, it’s a tornado. NOAA NSSL: Tornado basics
How do tornadoes form?
Forecasters look for four ingredients for tornadic thunderstorms: moisture, instability, lift and wind shear. NOAA Storm Prediction Center: The online tornado FAQ Wind shear is when the wind at two different heights blows at different speeds or in different directions. It can start air spinning like a horizontal tube. NOAA NSSL: Types of tornadoes Rising air in the thunderstorm tilts that spinning tube from horizontal to vertical. NOAA NSSL: Types of tornadoes
What is the EF scale?
The Enhanced Fujita (EF) scale, an update by meteorologists and wind engineers, came into use in the USA on 1 February 2007. NOAA Storm Prediction Center: EF scale wind speeds Tornado wind speeds are rarely measured directly. Experts look at the damage and work out what wind speed must have caused it. NOAA NSSL: Tornado basics
What is the TORRO scale?
The TORRO scale (T-scale), also called the International Tornado Intensity Scale, was devised in 1972 by Dr Terence Meaden in the UK. TORRO: The TORRO tornado intensity scale On the T-scale, T0–T3 are weak tornadoes, T4–T7 strong and T8–T11 violent. TORRO: The TORRO tornado intensity scale
Does the UK get tornadoes?
Around 30 tornadoes a year are reported in the UK. Met Office: Tornadoes · checked 31 Oct 2026 UK tornadoes are usually small and short-lived, but can damage buildings if they pass over built-up areas. Met Office: Tornadoes
Where do most UK tornadoes happen?
UK tornado hotspots: south-central England between Reading and London (peaking near Guildford), a corridor from Bristol through Birmingham to Manchester, and parts of Essex and Suffolk. Met Office blog: Tornadoes in the UK (22 Jul 2025)
How many tornadoes does Europe get?
From 2006 to 2013, an average of at least 278 tornadoes over land, plus about 205 waterspouts, were reported across Europe each year. Groenemeijer & Kühne (2014), A Climatology of Tornadoes in Europe, Monthly Weather Review (ESSL) · checked 31 Oct 2026
How many tornadoes does the USA get?
About 1,200 tornadoes hit the USA each year. NOAA NSSL: Tornado basics · checked 31 Oct 2026
What’s the difference between a tornado watch and a warning?
A tornado watch means tornadoes are possible in and near the area. Get ready and keep checking the news. NOAA NSSL: Tornado basics A tornado warning means a tornado has been reported by spotters or shown by radar. Take shelter now. NOAA NSSL: Tornado basics
Where is the best place to shelter?
The best place in a building is the most interior room on the lowest floor, with no windows: below ground if possible. NOAA Education: Tornadoes Wherever you are, protect your head with your hands and anything handy, such as a coat, book or pillow. NOAA Education: Tornadoes
Is a waterspout a tornado?
A waterspout is a tornado over water. In US records, waterspouts only count as tornadoes if they reach land. NOAA Storm Prediction Center: The online tornado FAQ
Which way do tornadoes spin?
Most tornadoes spin anticlockwise in the northern hemisphere and clockwise in the southern hemisphere, but not all of them. NOAA Storm Prediction Center: The online tornado FAQ
How long does a tornado last?
Tornadoes can last from a few seconds to more than an hour, but most last less than 10 minutes. NOAA Storm Prediction Center: The online tornado FAQ
What were the strongest winds ever found in a tornado?
A mobile Doppler radar measured winds of about 301 mph (give or take 20 mph) just above the ground in the 3 May 1999 Bridge Creek–Moore tornado in Oklahoma: the highest winds ever found near Earth’s surface. NOAA Storm Prediction Center: The online tornado FAQ
Our sources sometimes put the same thing in different ways, so we say who says what. The Met Office says around 30 tornadoes a year are reported in the UK; TORRO’s own 1981–2010 average is about 36. The Storm Prediction Center gives about 60 US tornado deaths in an average year, while NOAA Education gives an average of 71 a year for 1993–2022. EF-scale winds are 3-second gusts in mph; where we show km/h, we converted them ourselves. Figures that change, such as yearly averages and records, show the date we checked them (31 Oct 2026).