Types of Waves
A wave is a disturbance that carries energy through space. There are two types of waves, electromagnetic and mechanical. Mechanical waves are waves that require a medium to travel through and electromagnetic waves do not need a medium to travel through. There are two types of mechanical waves, longitudinal and transverse. Transverse waves travel up and down at a right angle to the direction of the wave. Longitudinal waves move back and forth parallel to the direction of the wave.
Parts Of Waves
Crest: the highest point of a wave
Trough: the lowest point of a wave
Amplitude: the farthest distance that the particles in a wave move away from their resting position or the distance from the resting position to either the crest or trough
Wavelength: the distance between one point of one wave and the same point on the next wave
Frequency: how many waves pass through a point in a second
Trough: the lowest point of a wave
Amplitude: the farthest distance that the particles in a wave move away from their resting position or the distance from the resting position to either the crest or trough
Wavelength: the distance between one point of one wave and the same point on the next wave
Frequency: how many waves pass through a point in a second
Tornadoes
Tornadoes are rotating columns of air, which are usually started by severe thunderstorms. The thunderstorms then become tornadoes when gravity waves meet up with the thunderstorms. Gravity waves are created in the atmosphere, meaning that they start out as electromagnetic waves because our atmosphere is in space and space is not a medium. After being created in our atmosphere, they travel down to Earth as transverse waves. They travel throughout Earth as transverse waves because they travel up and down as transverse waves do. You can see that they travel as transverse waves by sometimes looking at the patterns of the clouds. An example is shown below as the up and down motion of the waves create the lines of the clouds:
How Tornadoes Really Form
Above, there is a brief description on how tornadoes form, but here is a more detailed description. Usually, the type of thunderstorms that cause a tornado are when dry, cool air from the upper atmosphere mixes with the warm surface air, thus creating an unstable atmosphere. The thunderstorms then form because of the unstable atmosphere and these thunderstorms tend to have a wind that has a clock-wise rotation. Gravity waves form in space, specifically our atmosphere and they form from an impulse, a disturbance in our atmosphere. The types of disturbances include wind shears, a thunderstorm updraft or a sudden change in our jet stream. After the disturbance has happened, energy spreads out in the shape of gravity waves, rolling around through the air. The energy continues to travel through the air and when it encounters a thunderstorm, the energy is transferred into the wind. With the wind having an extra burst of energy, it spins faster, compressing the storm into a rotating column. The energy continues to circulate through wind, the thunderstorm then becomes a powerful tornado with winds of up to 200 miles per hour. As the tornado moves across the land, the tornado comes into contact with things like houses and trees. When the tornado comes into contact with these things, the force or power created by the energy hits these things and leaves an impact. The impacts left by the tornado are what we call the damage of a tornado because usually the majority of the things that the tornado hit are now broken. A tornado usually ends when the air is no longer unstable, yet the energy just won't disappear when the tornado is over, it will just transfer back into the air or transfer into things that the tornado hit.
How Tornadoes Are Measured
Tornadoes are measured on a scale called the Fujita Scale based upon the tornado's intensity. The scale is from F0 to F5 with a F0 tornado being considered to be a light tornado and an F5 tornado being considered to be an incredible and devastating tornado. They determine what part of the scale the tornado is on by looking at the damage after the tornado is over.