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Mini-tornado – A fallacious term often used in European news media to refer to tornadoes occurring there; even large, strong, and/or long track tornadoes produced by supercells. This is apparently due to the erroneous perception that "real" tornadoes do not occur in Europe (or elsewhere where the term is applied).
Weak tornadoes, or strong yet dissipating tornadoes, can be exceedingly narrow, sometimes only a few feet or couple meters across. One tornado was reported to have a damage path only 7 feet (2.1 m) long. [28] On the other end of the spectrum, wedge tornadoes can have a damage path a mile (1.6 km) wide or more.
An example of a tornado warning polygon issued by the National Weather Service. A tornado warning (SAME code: TOR) is a public warning that is issued by weather forecasting agencies to an area in the direct path of a tornado, or a severe thunderstorm capable of producing one, and advises individuals in that area to take cover.
Some of the most notorious twisters in U.S. history were wedge tornadoes, including the EF5 that leveled Joplin, Missouri, on May 22, 2011, and the El Reno tornado, which was a jaw-dropping 2.6 ...
The Fujita scale, introduced in 1971 as a means to differentiate tornado intensity and path area, assigned wind speeds to damage that were, at best, educated guesses. [19] Fujita and others recognized this immediately and intensive engineering analysis was conducted through the rest of the 1970s.
Alternate wording: Expect damage to mobile homes, roofs, screen enclosures, carports, vehicles and trees along the path of the tornado. (For landspouts and weak tornadoes, alternative impact statements may be utilized at the discretion of the Weather Forecast Office; all other statements are standard nationwide.) "Base" (default)
Tornadoes of this intensity tend to shred and scour low-lying grass and vegetation from the ground. Very little recognizable structural debris is generated by EF5 damage, with most materials reduced to a coarse mix of small, granular particles and dispersed evenly across the tornado's damage path.
Tornado families are sometimes mistaken as a single continuous tornado, especially prior to the 1970s. Sometimes the tornado tracks can overlap and expert analysis is necessary to determine whether or not damage was created by a family or a single tornado. [2] Oftentimes, tornadoes are small and don’t make it far before dying out.