how does a tornado affect the water cycle and also how does it help erosion of rocks ?
466630
try this site http://www.howstuffworks.com/tornado.htm
1089980
Water\n\nSplash erosion is the detachment and airborne movement of small soil particles caused by the impact of raindrops on soil. Sheet erosion is the result of heavy rain on bare soil where water flows as a sheet down any gradient, carrying soil particles. Where precipitation rates exceed soil infiltration rates, runoff occurs. Surface runoff turbulence can often cause more erosion than the initial raindrop impact. Gully erosion results where water flows along a linear depression eroding a trench or gully.\n\nValley or stream erosion occurs with continued water flow along a linear feature. The erosion is both downward, deepening the valley, and headward, extending the valley into the hillside. In the earliest stage of stream erosion, the erosive activity is dominantly vertical, the valleys have a typical V cross-section and the stream gradient is relatively steep. When some base level is reached the erosive activity switches to lateral erosion which widens the valley floor and creates a narrow floodplain. The stream gradient becomes nearly flat and lateral deposition of sediments becomes important as the stream meanders across the valley floor. In all stages of stream erosion by far the most erosion occurs during times of flood, when more and faster-moving water is available to carry a larger sediment load. In such processes, it is not the water alone that erodes, suspended abrasive particles, pebbles and boulders can also act erosively, as they traverse a surface.\n\nWind\n\nWind erosion, also known as eolian erosion is the movement of rock and/or sediment by the wind. Windbreaks are often planted by farmers to reduce wind erosion. This includes the planting of trees, shrubs, or other vegetation, usually perpendicular or nearly so to the principal wind direction. The wind causes dust particles to be lifted and therefore moved to another region. Wind erosion generally occurs in areas with little or no vegetation, often in areas where there is insufficient rainfall to support vegetation. An example is the formation of sand dunes, on a beach or in a desert.\n\nGlacial\n\nIce erosion is caused by movement of ice, typically as glaciers. Glaciers can scrape down a slope and break up rock and then transport it, leaving moraines, drumlins and glacial erratics in their wake, typically at the terminus or during glacier retreat. Ice wedging is the weathering process in which water trapped in tiny rock cracks freezes and expands, breaking the rock. This can lead to gravity erosion on steep slopes. The scree which forms at the bottom of a steep mountainside is mostly formed from pieces of rock broken away by this means. It is a common engineering problem, wherever rock cliffs are alongside roads, because morning thaws can drop hazardous rock pieces onto the road.
44270
The funnel of a tornado is actually clear.  The only way we actually see the tornado is because of the debris that is circulating inside the funnel.  The wind speed of the tornado will not increase because of debris.  Debris can only be a hinderance to a tornado.  To help you think about this, think about a very large piece of debris, lets say a mountain.  Now while the mountain is not going to be picked up and tossed around like dirt, cows, trucks and some houses, it is still something that is getting in the way of a tornado.  The mid-west experiences far more tornadoes than any other region.  This is because they are uninhibited from forming.  Basically the more you put in the way of the funnel the more difficult it will be for that funnel (aka the tornado) to form.  To put it on a level that everyone can relate to, think of your toilet.  When you flush the toilet the water starts to swirl.  A funnel begins to appear in the water and eventually everything goes away.  What happens if there is too much TP(debris) in the way?  The funnel never forms and you get a clog.  I hope this helps.
411596
The rock cycle is the continuous movement of rock from one type to another. These processes occur over long amounts of time. All rock started out as igneous. From there, rock can then become sedimentary, metamorphic, or igneous again in any order.\n\nIgneous --> Sedimentary:\nIgneous rocks break down through weathering processes. The broken down rock becomes sediments which are deposited by wind or water. Layers of sediment build up on top of each other. Pressure, along with dissolved minerals, help to "glue" the rock together.\n\nSedimentary --> Metamorphic ("change form"):\nIf the pressure is great & enough heat is applied, metamorphism can occur. This causes the rock to become more compact & dense. If too much heat is applied then the rock will melt. See below.\n\nMetamorphic --> Igneous:\nIf heat is applied to the point of melting, the rock will go though the igneous phase again.\n\n:)
972997
Hail forms when water frezes as it falls and then wind blows it back up high befor it hits the ground.  It colects another layer of water that frezes, and if the wind is strong enough, it will fly back up, and the cycle repeats untill the wind is not strong enough to cary the hevy ball of frozen water back up.\nSnow forms when water droplets in clouds freeze and crisylise.
276041
because the desert hardly ever has severe weather, therefore a tornado cant destroy them. as for earthquakes, a fault line has not been discovered in the desert, but its nothing but sand.
110099
Not quite what the root of this question is but on it's face, rain erodes rocks. The greatest, and one of the most beautiful, examples is the grand canyon. rain feeds the colorado river which runs thru the canyon carving out of the solid rock over milenia. rain is the most corrosive force on the planet, nothing...nothing can stand against it. eventually water will get thru anything.
408414
The easy answer is, of course, from the potato salad and burrito you had earlier. A more dignified answer is at Scientific American. \n\nSimply put, wind is the motion of air molecules. Two concepts are central to understanding what causes wind: air and air pressure. Air comprises molecules of nitrogen (about 78 percent by volume), oxygen (about 21 percent by volume), water vapor (between 1 and 4 percent by volume near the surface of the earth) and other trace elements. Every time we breathe, the air we inhale is composed of about the same relative ratios of these molecules, and a cubic inch of air at ground level contains about 1020 molecules. \n\nAll of these air molecules are moving about very quickly, colliding readily with each other and any objects at ground level. Air pressure is defined as the amount of force that these molecules impart on a given area. In general, the more air molecules present, the greater the air pressure. Wind, in turn, is driven by what is called the pressure gradient force. Changes in air pressure over a specified horizontal distance cause air molecules from the region of relatively high air pressure to rush toward the area of low pressure. Such horizontal pressure differences of all scales generate the wind we experience. \n\nThe areas of high and low pressure displayed on a weather map in large part drive the (usually) gentle ambient wind flow we experience on a given day. The pressure differences behind this wind are only about 1 percent of the total atmospheric pressure, and these changes occur over the range of multiple states. The winds in severe storms, in contrast, are a result of much larger and more concentrated areas of horizontal pressure change. Tornadoes are great examples. In June 2003 Tim Samaras of Applied Research Associates placed a scientific probe in the direct path of an F4 (devastating) tornado near Manchester, S. Dak. He found that the air pressure dropped by 10 percent of the total atmospheric value over the radius of the tornado. The magnitude of this air pressure change, and the very short distance over which it occurred, explains why the winds are so destructive in this phenomenon: air molecules are very quickly accelerated into the very low pressure at the center of the tornado where the water vapor contained in the air often condenses, creating the often visible "condensation funnel."
165682
A complete answer to this question would require a very large book.  You will need better focus for a short answer.\n\nAcids dissolve most minerals and rocks.  Even water dissolves rocks or rock constituents over a long period of time.  There is fabulous erosion in calcium rich rocks creating tunnels and underground chambers...\n\nAcid rain enhances this process greatly.  Virtually all the salts in the oceans came by the erosion of rock salts over aeons of time spent under the never ceasing rainy seasons.\n\nSome conditions are rock forming or metamorphosing, others are rock dissolving.\n\nHeat and cold are also factors in the deterioration of rock, making it more vulnerable to water and acid rain.\n\nThere are many fabulous websites on rocks and minerals and gemstones.  Just Google some of that and you will pull up two or three super-excellent ones.\n\nTry also Googling "rock geological processes."  Keep it in quotes.
500664
During the process of erosion, the surface of a rock is broken down.\n\nIt can be done by one or two means...\n\nMechanical weathering: rock is broken down into smaller pieces through frost wedging, abrasion, exfoliation, etc.\n\nChemical weathering: rock is broken down into one or more new substances usually through the action of water. Water reacts w/ iron to produce iron oxide. Water also reacts w/ other elements & compounds to produce mild acids that eat away at the surfaces of rocks. Most of the acids are completely natural while some are caused by pollution.\n\nBoth of these can act together to break rock down faster. When a rock has been mechanically weathered it's surface area will increase allowing the chemical weathering to occur at a faster rate.
280145
Very briefly, the combined effects of the sun and earth's rotation provide the energy that drives storms. Solar heating heats the earth's surface, most strongly in tropic regions, and drives a water transport cycle by evaporating water from oceans, lakes etc. into the air. Convection conveys hot, moisture-laden tropical air toward the poles and cold polar air back toward the tropics. And the rotation of the earth causes these air movements to acquire a rotational component (Coriolis force). When cold air masses meet hot, moist air masses, the cold air may rise up over the hot air, or cold air may pass over hot, wet land, either scenario creating an instability. The overturning of this creates convective vertical air movements which may be augmented by the rotation. Downdraft convection is felt as winds on the ground. Within the storm cell, the hot moist air transfers heat to the cold air through water condensation, and this can bring rain or frozen precipitation. Updrafts of warm moist air form precipitation as the air is cooled due to reduced pressure at high altitude. Adjacent updrafts and downdrafts produce a type of wind shear that can cause aircraft to lose lift and crash.
751696
well considering the tornado "belt" is primarily flat open land i'm going to venture to say that any "relief" on your "topography" would reduce the amount occurances of tornados. but i'm just guessing
1049502
The best way to view them is on video.\nA waterspout that makes landfall takes on a new name then... tornado.  The water that has been sucked-up into the funnel becomes very unstable at landfall and goes everywhere.  The wind does even more damage.\nSo for that reason, treat a waterspout the same as you would any tornado.
502971
i believe if you take two two liter pepsi bottles and fill one with water and tape the openings together so it looks like a giant egg timer when you turn one bottle upside down and swirl it a little it will cause a tornado effect.
306115
Get an empty 2 liter soda bottle and fill it half-way with water. Hold the top and spin it in a circular motion. This will cause the water to look like a tornado.  Technicaly, a tornado is caused by a cold air mass "wedging" a warm air mass up. Another mass of air then clashes into them and causes the air to spin.
292725
I will give this question a stab and I caution that the answer may not be exactly correct. \n\n The weathering complex refers to the action of wind and rain on sculping the geography of the Earth or any other planet for that matter. The Grand Canyon is a prime example of this action. It was sculped--there is probably a better word to use here but I can't think of it--by the flow of the Colorado River. In this particular area of the country where it does not rain very frequently and there is sparce vegitation, when it does rain hard, the erosion can be severe. The same can be said of soil erosion caused by the wind. During the 1930's the mid-west became a dust bowl and millions of tons of soil were displaced by wind.  In some places when the wind blew, it was like night at mid day because of all the dusk in the air.  \n\nIf you have ever driven through the Appalachian Mountians and looked at where the road was cut through the mountians you would have noticed that the layers of sedamentary rock seemed to abrutly  terminate at one side of the mountain. It is like a giant hand came down and scooped out part of the mountain. That giant hand was the stream or river at the bottom of the mountain. It literally cut through the mountain during millions and millions of years. \n\nOne of the best examples of wind erosion in the U S can be found at Great Sand Dunes National Monument in southern Colorado.  There there are sand dunes hundreds of feet high cause by the wind carrying the particals of sand into that sheltered area. A lesser example of this are the sand dunes in Dunes State Park in Indiana along the south shore of Lake Michigan. And of course everyone has seen the sand dunes of the Sahara Desert in the movies.
348038
Yes the water circles down the drain differently in the Southern and Northern hemispheres, as do tornadoes.