Why is it that the US has tornados & no other country seems to get them?
343523
Tornadoes have been reported in many other countries.  The U.S. just gets more of them than anywhere else; as already mentioned, formation conditions are the most favorable in the world in Tornado Alley.\n\nFor instance, Australia is another country that's believed to be a (distant) second in tornado activity; however, what tornadoes do form are probably underreported because of the sparse population.
274665
The definition of a tornado is a violently rotating column of air that extends from the base of a thunderstorm to ground level.  The circulation MUST go all the way to the ground and all the way to the cloud base.  There does not need to be a visible funnel for a tornado to occur.  The visible funnel often is the result of debris or rain being wrapped into the circulation.  This is why tornadoes come in different colors.  A tornado that moves over the red dirt of Oklahoma may take on a red hue, while one that moves over black soil may look black.  There are even "white" tornadoes, which get their tone from moisture being wrapped in.\n\nRadar is useful for determining if a thunderstorm has the necessary circulation in the mid levels to produce a tornado or that a storm COULD produce a tornado, but it can't tell if that circulation is actually on the ground.  Only human eyes can tell that.  As a result, the National Weather Service works with specially trained volunteer weather spotters through a program called SKYWARN.  These spotters are mostly volunteers, most of whom are licensed Amateur Radio operators.  These spotters monitor the storms from the field and radio reports of tornadoes or other hazardous weather to a liaison or directly to the NWS.  Some spotters also "chase" storms.  They watch the weather forecasts and may travel to areas where storms are likely to form.\n\nI'm a SKYWARN weather spotter, and have seen several tornadoes over the years.  It's a real trip to see a tornado form, move and eventually "rope out" and die.  However, it's very dangerous to get close to one (obviously!).  I was just in the right/wrong place at the time...\n\nThe sites I have listed below are ones that I have found useful over the years.  You can even get your own local weather by going to the first link (NWS) on the list and entering in your ZIP or by clicking your area on the map.\n\n*Edited to add another great link (SPC website)
181055
People hate us because we are involved in what other countries do and what is going on there.  Sure, that is one of the reasons.  So, we really need to stop sending aid when disasters strike other countries, especially since little is done to help the people here.  Also, if they are attacked by another nation, stay out of it, if they get taken over, so be it.\n\nBut another reason they hate us is people from other countries really think that the American media and government are the only ones that lie to the people, and they really believe their own leaders and media are 100% truthful.  They ignorantly think that all Americans have big homes and fancy cars and live the good life, because they were told this by their media.  They also accuse Americans of thinking all people of a nation are the same.  The funny thing is that these same people think every American is exactly the same, they do not bother to learn the truth.
501639
Technically yes there must be a storm of some kind... But the tornado isn't usually in the center of a storm usually its on the southwestern corner or side of the storm and it might not even be raining in that part of the storm, making it appear that its not in the storm.\n\nTo have a tornado you need these 2 things....\n\n1. A convective rain shower/thunderstorm\n2. Winds in the upper and middle layers of the atmosphere running Perpendicular to eachother, or the winds in the lower and middle layers. ( basically wind blowing in 2 different directions at different altitudes of the storm, like at the ground the wind be blowing from the west and up about 10,000 feet the wind blowing from the south.)\n\nThats really about it... Those dont really mean that you will get a tornado, it just that those things must be present to create a tornado.
395422
I don't know.. it's weird though.  I lived in the midwest for years and we always had tornado warnings starting in the evening.  The Wautoma, Wisconsin tornado was in the evening.  Maybe it has something to do with the cooling air on land.
410200
Oklahoma has more real tornados per square mile than anywhere else in the world.  Florida has more per square mile, but most are F0 and F1, not enough to do anything.  Texas has more overall, but it's a bigger state.  According to the NOAA, Oklahoma City has had more tornados than any other city.
1159760
I live in Kansas and have been thru 6 really bad ones, and many warnings that were uneventful when it comes to the funnels themselves...The sky turns dark..hail occurs and heavy rains then a sudden calm happens just before the funnel touches down to the ground..It does sound loud like a freight train but I just say its a tornado sound now..Debris flies thru the air as well..Once saw a cow lifted and thrown onto a farm building roof..amazing but scary!Not something I like to live thru but have...
1073839
Because the storm system is too small and too high up to create dark clouds or a warning of a storm\n\nI live in Kentucky and its so odd because it can be 70 degrees outside and then it will suddenly it will start raining terribly hard and hailing.\n\nBut it lasts for 5 minutes or so then dissapates and moves on to the next county. \n\n(Like that quote says:  "Dont like the weather in Kentucky? Wait 5 minutes") lol.
570708
Tornado is the most violent of all storms. A tornado, sometimes called a twister, consists of a rapidly rotating column of air that forms under a thundercloud or a developing thundercloud. Tornado winds swirl at speeds that may exceed 300 miles (480 kilometers) per hour. A powerful tornado can lift cattle, automobiles, and even mobile homes into the air and destroy almost everything in its path. Fortunately, most tornadoes are relatively weak, and only a few are devastating. \nScientists use the word cyclone to refer to all spiral-shaped windstorms that circulate in a counterclockwise direction in the Northern Hemisphere or in a clockwise direction in the Southern Hemisphere. The term cyclone comes from the Greek word for circle. Cyclones come in many sizes. Among the largest such storms are hurricanes and typhoons, which may reach 250 miles (400 kilometers) across. \nMost tornadoes are small, intense cyclones. On rare occasions, the winds whirl in the direction opposite that of a cyclone--for example, clockwise in the Northern Hemisphere. \nMost tornadoes have damage paths less than 1,600 feet (500 meters) wide, move at less than 35 miles (55 kilometers) per hour, and last only a few minutes. Extremely destructive twisters may reach 1 mile (1.6 kilometers) in diameter, travel at 60 miles (100 kilometers) per hour, and blow for more than an hour. \nThe United States has the highest incidence of tornadoes in the world. Most of these storms occur in a belt known as Tornado Alley that stretches across the Midwestern and Southern states, especially Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska, and Iowa. However, tornadoes also strike many other parts of the world. Australia ranks second to the United States in number of twisters, and many damaging tornadoes strike Bangladesh. Tornadoes occur most often during the spring and early summer in the late afternoon and early evening. \nA tornado over a body of water is called a waterspout. Waterspouts occur frequently in summer over the Florida Keys. Waterspouts also form elsewhere in the Gulf, along the Atlantic and Pacific coasts, over the Great Lakes, and even over the Great Salt Lake in Utah. \nThe story of a tornado. The majority of tornadoes develop from severe thunderstorms. A hurricane, when it makes landfall, can also generate tornadoes. \nThe most damaging tornadoes form in large, powerful thunderstorms called supercells. For a supercell to form, and perhaps spawn a tornado, several conditions must exist. There must be an adequate supply of moisture to feed the storm. In Tornado Alley, air from the Gulf of Mexico provides the moisture. There must be a layer of warm, moist air near the ground and a layer of much cooler air above. Often, a front (the boundary between two air masses at different temperatures) powers an upward flow of warm air. As the warm air rises, it begins to cool, and the moisture it holds condenses into raindrops. The air stops rising at high levels and spreads sideways to form a characteristic anvil-shaped storm cloud. \nFor a supercell to develop, the winds at higher elevations must differ markedly from those at lower levels in speed, direction, or both. Such a large difference in wind speed or direction is called wind shear. Wind shear makes the column of rising air begin to rotate, forming a broad, horizontal tube of swirling air. As the storm continues, this tube turns on its end, producing a rotating column of air called a mesocyclone. Studies show that most supercells containing mesocyclones eventually produce tornadoes. \nA low, dark, heavy cloud called a wall cloud forms underneath the mesocyclone. Tornado funnels develop out of the wall cloud. \nThe first sign of an approaching tornado may be light rain, followed by heavier rain, then rain mixed with hail. The hailstones may grow to the size of golf balls or even baseballs. After the hail ends, a tornado may strike. In most tornadoes, a funnel-shaped cloud forms and descends from the wall cloud until it touche
305968
over the ocean it is hard to find out how many waterspouts (the correct term of tornadoes over water) form.  Tornadoes in the US turn out to be about 300, hurricanes/ tropical storms worldwide is about 100,  thunderstorms happen each day all over the world so it is hard to keep count.  Even us meteorologist have a hard time trying to predict hot spots for hurricane formation, it was a shock that Hurricane ivan came 8o lat, from the equator, becuase they need what is called the corriolis force to exist, near the equator the force is =0 so even we have a hard time keeping count, as well as predicting them.
447138
The U.S. is definitely the tornado capital of the world.\n\nhttp://www.usatoday.com/weather/tg/wtorwhat/wtorwhat.htm
301253
1) Tornadoes happen in the "Corn Belt" of the United States, so the farms tend to have cows.  Therefore, in a movie about tornadoes, it makes sense to have something that is common in that area of the country.\n2) Hollywood hype.  It tends to make people laugh, even if they don't approve of animal violence.
960116
man cant control natural disasters for many reasons. first of all humans dont know when such an event will occur. most of the time they realize only after the disaster starts. secondly they have no technology that can stop a coming tornado or tsunami or such disaster.
381488
There are three reasons why North America has so many powerful tornados.\n\n1. Cold dry air from the North.\n2. Warm moist air from the gulf of Mexico\n3. The Great Plains.\n\nWhen cold dry air from the north collides with warm moist air from the Gulf of Mexico, the moisture in the warm air condenses forming clouds. When this occures in a way that warm air gets trapped below the cloud cover, and cold air gets trapped above, it creates very unstable conditions.\n\nThe warm air wants to rise and the cold air wants to fall. The result is often a large thunderstorm known as a supercell. \n\nWhen this occures over the central portion of North America, known as the Great Plains, the flat landscape allows for the easy formation of horizontal columns of circular wind. One theory on tornado formation asserts that tornados form when these circulating columns get caught in an updraft (rising warm air).\n\nWhile tornados can form just about anywhere, even in mountainous regions, the Great Plains of North America provides ideal conditions.
449760
Because it's their home. Why don't people abandon the Middle East? Why don't people leave San Francisco after all all of California will float off one day. Why don't people leave Chicago. God they have heat waves there all the time. While we are at it, why don't we all move to Kansas where it's safe. OH yeah  that's right  tornadoes. Hurricanes are bad but there are many other places with natural disasters. Just because you're home gets hit by a really bad, house falling down snow storm every once in awhile doesn't mean you are going to leave it. It' snot like New Orleans gets wiped out every year or something and every year the coast gets hit. It doesn't mean that every last inch of it gets destroyed. My parents house on the Gulf Coast is fine. So are all my other friends and families homes. If they have a perfectly good home there   why the .... would they leave.
677757
Often wind damage that's blamed on tornadoes is actually done by winds coming down from a shower or thunderstorm. \nSuch "microburst" winds can reach more than 150 mph. In a tornado, the air is rising as it swirls around the vortex.\n\nIn the U.S. such microbursts are common from the Western Rockies eastward.. why? because that is where the rains are more prevalent
1128213
A tornado is not just wind, the fact that you can see them is either a if it drags condensation down witth them when they form (condensation funnel), or stir up dust and debris when they contact the ground. These "clouds" are actually rapidly spinning vortices (if you dont know it, look it up), that can produce winds in excess of 300 mph on the Fujita Scale (Ditto), and the stuff they can pick up and carry with them..... well, I think that about covers it.