M4-Tornadoes

For this choice blog I decide to write about national and international news and how it can affect us in Alden.  It is no secret that there has been a major outbreak of tornadoes. Just because we live in Alden, doesn’t mean that we get just snow. Western New York can still get possible tornadoes, but just not as many or sever as in tornado alley. In Alden we had a tornado two or three years ago. Before that we had sights of funnel clouds and had tornado advisories.

Here in Western New York, when there is a hot summer day and there is cool air coming off of Lake Erie it creates thunderstorms. With the hot air raising it fuels the storm and the cool air create out flow with can cause the clouds to rotate. One the clouds are rotating fast enough it creates a storm cell, and storm wall. When these are created it is likely that tornadoes can be formed. But before it is a tornado it is a funnel could. Which is exactly what is sounds like, a cloud in shape of a funnel. Once the funnel cloud reaches the ground or starts to stir things up it is called a tornado. Tornadoes are scaled on the Enchanted Fujita Scale; the scale is based on wind speed and damage. The range is EF0, which only cause a few down power lines and broken trees, to a EF5. EF5s are the most deadly and sever tornadoes of them all. An EF5 can exceed winds of about 300 mph. They can easily level a town the size of Alden, leaving nothing behind.

In this past week alone 41 people have died, including the 14 month old miracle baby. This baby was found ten miles away from her home in the middle of a field. Unfortunately her father, mother, and siblings also perished from the severe weather. In Kentucky a tornado was on the ground for 95 miles. But that wasn’t the worst one in history.  In 1925 a tornado went through three states killing 695 people and was on the ground for at least 3 and a half hours.

In conclusion, we always need to be prepared for the unexpected.