Winter Tornadoes

by Me
(Upstairs)

I was in my house, and all of a sudden I heard a crack in the attic. The door was opened and I got freaked out. I told my friend...so later that night me and my friend decided to sleep in the attic to see what was happening.

We heard noises and we started crying because of our fears. The news said that there was gonna be a tornado in the winter, so then the tornado sucked in the bad guy and, lucky for us, we got out safety.

Barry's Response - And then you woke up. A tornado in the winter? Apparently it DOES happen in the USA. The nation gets 30 to 40 on average in each of the winter months. That compares to two to three hundred in April and May.

I wouldn't have imagined. It must be the far southern states that get them at that time of year, although it is not impossible. There was even one in January 1954 in Nova Scotia, Canada.

Why the decrease in tornadoes during these months? They require a good deal of energy (Convectively-Available-Potential-Energy or CAPE for short) to develop, which is most often found in baroclinic zones. The sharpest baroclinic zones (lines dividing warm from colder air masses) occur in the springtime in the US and summer in Canada.

There are a few cases where tornadoes have travelled across snowy land, and they can be just as severe as during regular tornado season.

They are more difficult to outrun in winter, since driving (not recommended during a tornado any time) is more difficult in winter road conditions and winter tornadoes travel faster.

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