David McKenzie

PHYS 1010
Physics of Tornados
Tornados are among the most destructive natural disasters. I am going to analyze the
tornado that hit in Joplin, Missouri in May, 2011. This tornado was described as the worst
tornado in 50 years. The most damage was done to a 9 story hospital. The sirens in the hospital
had gone off 20 minutes before the tornado hit the hospital. Many people were killed that day
and many more were injured. The 5 laws of physics I chose to use to analyze the tornado and
how it was formed is: Newtons third law of motion, conservation of angular momentum, second
law of thermodynamics, law of electromagnetism, and the law of conservation of energy.
Alok Jha, "Missori town ravaged by worst tornadoe in 50 years." "The Gaurdian," (May 23,
2011)http://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/may/23/missouri-town-joplin-ravaged-tornado

Missouri town ravaged by worst tornado in 50 years

Joplin's former mayor describes disaster scene as a 'war zone' which has destroyed entire
neighbourhoods
A Joplin resident surveys the destruction caused by the tornado that ripped through the small
town. Photograph: Larry W Smith/EPA
Suzanne Goldenberg, US environment correspondent
@suzyji
Monday 23 May 2011 20.48 EDTLast modified on Monday 18 January 201609.39
America was put on alert for more violent storms on Tuesday, barely 36 hours after the deadliest
tornado in modern history killed 116 and turned a smallMissouri town into a disaster zone.
As day broke on Monday, Joplin awoke to unimaginable destruction: a vast expanse of splintered
trees where entire neighbourhoods once stood, and cars were flung about like freeform metal
sculptures.
The rescue effort once again pitched humans against the elements, as emergency crews equipped
with axes and torches worked their way through rubble looking for survivors, lashed by strong
winds and occasional hail. The authorities warned the death toll could rise.
And there was no immediate end in sight. A new tornado watch was issued on Monday night for
the areas around Joplin, as well as Oklahoma and parts of Kansas and Texas.

Sunday night's tornado was the deadliest since 1953, and the second tornado disaster in the US in
less than a month.
The twister cut a six-mile swath through the centre of the town, wrecking churches, schools,
businesses and homes. The town's fire department estimated up to a third of buildings were
damaged or destroyed.
The former mayor, Gary Shaw, described the scene in the town of 50,000 as a war zone. "The
trees," he told National Public Radio, "they're like somebody's taken a knife and cut all the bark
off of them. We've lost tonnes and tonnes of homes, and we have people out trying to uncover the
dead right now."
Some of the worst destruction was at St John's Regional Medical Centre. The nine-storey
building, the tallest in town, took a direct hit. At least five of the 116 dead were killed at the
hospital.
About 180 patients were in the hospital when the warning sirens went off, witnesses said. They
had about 20 minutes before the black funnel cloud descended, hovering over the hospital for
about a minute.
Nurses told of desperate attempts to move patients away from windows and into enclosed
hallways. Some patients were evacuated on pick-up trucks.
Within 90 minutes, the hospital was empty. But rescue workers told reporters that many of the
patients had been cut by glass after the windows were blown out.
The ceiling of the emergency room caved in. Trolleys were tossed more than five city blocks
away, and medical records and x-rays were scattered for 60 miles. Cars were flung out of the car
park. A helicopter was hurled out of the landing pad and flipped on its side, its rotors a twisted
wreck.
"Every window in that building is now broken," Melodee Colbert-Kean, a city council woman,
told National Public Radio. "Cars are tumbled all over the parking lot."
Officials said the hospital was now unusable. The seriously ill were transported out of town to
other hospitals. Those able to walk were taken to a makeshift ward at a community centre.

Across the southern end of town, an estimated 2,000 buildings were damaged, street signs and
other landmarks vanished, rendering Joplin unrecognisable to residents who had spent their lives
there.
"You see pictures of world war two, the devastation and all that with the bombing. That's really
what it looked like," Kerry Sachetta, the principal of a flattened Joplin high school, told
reporters. "I couldn't even make out the side of the building. It was total devastation in my view.
I just couldn't believe what I saw."
Missouri's governor, Jay Nixon, said he feared the death toll would rise as rescue workers began
searching the rubble for survivors and bodies. "I don't think we are done counting," he told
reporters.
But he said he remained hopeful of finding survivors in the rubble. "I still believe that because of
the size of the debris and the number of people involved that there are lives to be saved."
As rescue workers moved out to look for survivors in the rubble, fires from gas leaks burned
across the city. Downed power lines blocked roads.
Nixon said he had reports of 15 missing elderly residents from a care home. The website of the
local paper, the Joplin Globe, carried messages from people searching for loved ones.
And with phone services down, dazed survivors tried to make their way through streets blocked
by debris to look for relatives. Outside the remains of a shopping mall, Justin Gibson pointed to a
black pickup truck tossed into the ruins of a hardware store that he said had belonged to his room
mate's brother.
"He was last seen here with his two little girls," Gibson told reporters. "We've been trying to get
hold of him since the tornado happened."
But there were also triumphs. Search crews pulled people from the rubble of a local Walmart and
a hardware chain.
Following Sunday's events, 2011 is in the running to be a record year for lethal storms. There
have been 1,000 reported tornadoes this year.
About 350 people were killed last month after an estimated 200 tornadoes ripped across Alabama
and five other southern states.

The storms set a record for the deadliest single tornado event, but even that has been eclipsed by
the devastation in Joplin.
It was the town's misfortune to take a direct hit. "If the Joplin tornado had struck 10 miles north,
we wouldn't be hearing about it, but it went right through the centre of town," said Robert
Henson, a spokesman for the University Corporation of Atmospheric Research.
The tornadoes could have inflicted even greater casualties and damage, however, said Josh
Wurman of the Centre for Severe Weather Research. "What if this had gone through St Louis or
Oklahoma City or Chicago instead of Joplin," he said. "The potential consequences would have
been much worse."
The first law of physics I am going to talk about is Newtons third law of motion. This
law states that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. There are many laws of
physics that help explain what is going on in a tornado, but Newtons third law of motion can
explain the characteristics of a tornado the instant it is formed. A tornado forms when hot humid
air from the ground and the cold air from above react with one another. In the spring Missouri
gets very hot and humid. Missouri and the surrounding states have cold fronts that pass over the
hot humid earth. This makes tornados very common for Missouri and the other states with
similar circumstances.
For my second law I chose the law of conservation of angular momentum. The wind
speed of a tornado has a lot to do with the diameter of the tornado. A tornado with a small
diameter has a fast wind speed. A tornado with a large diameter has a slower wind speed. Wind
speed will vary depending on the intensity of the storm, but as the storms energy is focused into
a smaller location the speed of the tornado will increase more and more as the forces become
more concentrated. In Joplin the tornado was concentrated directly in the path of the town. The
damage was maximized in places that were very close to the physical tornado.
The second law of thermodynamics explains why hot and cold air can cause a tornado.
The second law of thermodynamics states that heat flows from hot to cold. A tornado is likely to
form when the thermal energy coming from the hot earth moves to cold temperatures at a rate
that takes the system out of equilibrium. This causes the air to form a funnel like structure that
spins.
For my fourth law I chose the law of electromagnetism that states that opposites attract.
Electrons attract with protons and protons attract with electrons. A tornado is usually the result of
a massive super cell thunderstorm. A super cell thunderstorm forms when the electrons in the
clouds are attracted closer to the ground where it has an overall positive charge. There is a theory
that tornadoes are formed from a series of lightning discharges. The energy from the lightning
adds more energy to the system and helps the tornado gain the energy it needs to reach the
earths surface.
The final law I chose is the law of conservation of energy. A tornado forms from the
excess energy from a super cell thunderstorm. We can predict how strong the tornado will be
based on the strength of the thunderstorm. In Joplin there was a very powerful super cell
thunderstorm. The energy from the storm along with the hot air close to the earths surface is
what made this tornado so intense.

There are many things that must be present in order for a tornado to surface. There must
be a major difference in temperature, and a very strong thunderstorm. If we can better understand
the laws of physics we will be able to better predict when and where these monsters will strike.
In the case of Joplin, there would have been fewer casualties if they had more time to prepare for
the tornado. The reason this particular tornado was considered to be the second most destructive
in 50 years was because of how many people died. The tornado had completely formed 20
minutes after the alarms went off. If we could understand the physics of tornados before the
touch down then we will be able to prepare for them and minimize the damage.