What exactly is a Tornado?
Now that you've learned some local Tornado history and how they occur, you may be wondering what exactly a Tornado is. Think of a Tornado as a giant swirling cloud. A Tornado is basically a huge vortex of wind that violently rotate, causing destruction to the things it touches. Tornadoes usually come with a large system of wind, rain, and storms, it's severity dependent upon how bad the storms are and how hard the wind is. Tornadoes also have what meteorologists refer to as "fingers". Fingers are little tiny pieces of Tornado, if you will, that are attached to the Tornado, but don't usually touch the ground. The Tornado shoots off little fingers sometimes that just hit and go back in to the Tornado. While your house may not have been hit by the Tornado itself, it's fingers may have hit it, but don't usually cause as much damage as the Tornado itself. Below is a Tornado and to its right are its fingers.