Is it possible to stop a tornado

I might not have phrased it the best, but I want to know what we would need to do to stop it. How we do that is another matter entirely. Show 3 more comments. Active Oldest Votes. This phase causes the spinning motion that is then lifted vertical by rising warm air into a funnel cloud and then reaches to the ground to cause destruction When the spinning motion has formed and is detected, it could be disrupted by suddenly heating the area.

To heat the area rapidly, I would use a large, powerful, space-mounted infrared laser. Improve this answer. Side-effects may include first, second, and third degree burns or death. Add a comment. Recent research indicates that in order to form, a tornado needs both a cold, rainy downdraft and a warm updraft.

To stop a tornado from forming, just heat this cold downdraft until it's cold no longer. And how would one do this, you ask? Simple: Blast it with beams of microwaves from a fleet of satellites. The satellites would collect solar energy, transform it into microwaves, and send a beam down to Earth. The beams would be focused on cold downdrafts, heating them like last night's leftovers.

The European Space Agency has funded initial studies on building this type of satellite, though it hopes to use the satellites as high-altitude solar-power stations, not as weather modifiers.

Community Bot 1. NuWin NuWin 4 4 silver badges 9 9 bronze badges. Yeah I'm sure the international ban on satellite based weaponry will be totally fine with that Heating up air near the surface from space is going to be difficult, especially with microwaves. The cold air is dry, so there goes trying to excite the water molecules to transfer the energy.

Popular Science is really stretching the term 'science' on this one Show 1 more comment. This could have two effects: Cool the area Give the tornado more mass water so it needs a bigger temperature difference to keep its rotational speed. These effects would reduce the power of the tornado and in the end, stop it. JohnWDailey Willi Willi 2 2 bronze badges.

Or at least try. Please do some research before posting I don't know the answers myself, which is why I haven't answered. You're basically just speculating off the top of your head when you could be Googling some of your claims and learning more about tornados. I often Google as I write answers to fill in gaps in my knowledge and sometimes I even end up changing my premise.

Facts are good. You've been a member for a while, but not active. They said it hurt their ears, but they were more worried about what might happen to them than they were about the pain in their ears. Can tornadoes be stopped?

You have to consider that the tornado is part of something bigger: the supercell thunderstorm. Unless you disrupt the supercell thunderstorm itself, you would likely have another tornado, even if you were able to destroy the first.

The thunderstorm's energy is much greater than the tornado. No one has tried to disrupt the tornado because the methods to do so could likely cause even more damage than the tornado. Detonating a nuclear bomb, for example, to disrupt a tornado would be even more deadly and destructive than the tornado itself. Lesser tactics like deploying huge piles of dry ice or smaller conventional weaponry would be too hard to get into the right place fast enough, and would likely not have enough impact to affect the tornado much anyway.

Thunderstorms, and all of the hazards they produce, are part of a natural earth cycle. Taking actions sufficient to disrupt this cycle could lead to unintended consequences. What is the difference between a tornado watch and a tornado warning? A tornado watch defines an area where tornadoes and other kinds of severe weather are possible in the next several hours. It means that you need to be alert, and be prepared to go to safe shelter if tornadoes happen or a warning is issued. Tune in to local TV, radio or internet for more information.

A tornado warning means that a tornado has been spotted, or that Doppler radar shows a thunderstorm circulation which can spawn a tornado. When a tornado warning is issued for your area, seek safe shelter immediately.

The Storm Prediction Center issues tornado and severe thunderstorm watches. Your local National Weather Service office issues tornado warnings, as well as thunderstorm warnings, which include the possibility of tornadoes. What would it be like to be in the eye of a tornado?

This is a fiction largely caused by the movie Twister. How many tornadoes hit the US each year? About , though it can vary significantly from year to year or location to location. I have a theory about tornadoes; who do I talk to? We receive literally hundreds of ideas for observing, controlling, or stopping destructive storms. Our scientists are likely to look at ideas that are investigated by a researcher who publishes the results in a peer-reviewed journal.

In this way they can review, and if necessary, replicate the results, which then will suggest the next step to move the science forward. I would like to volunteer to help NSSL during a tornado intercept field project. Unfortunately, government regulations make it impossible to accept offers from the public to do volunteer field work for any tornado intercept programs.

Legal liability questions prevent NSSL from accepting volunteers, even at their own risk. How is the strength of a tornado determined? The rating scale for tornadoes is based entirely on the damage they cause. From the damage, we can estimate the wind speeds.

The EF-Scale takes into account more variables than the original Fujita Scale F-Scale when assigning a wind speed rating to a tornado, incorporating 28 damage indicators such as building type, structures and trees. For each damage indicator, there are 8 degrees of damage ranging from the beginning of visible damage to complete destruction of the damage indicator.

The original F-scale did not take these details into account. The original F-Scale historical data base will not change. An F5 tornado rated years ago is still an F5, but the wind speed associated with the tornado may have been somewhat less than previously estimated.

Strong or violent tornadoes can and do occur in areas where minimal damage occurs, leading to a low EF scale rating. Do tornadoes target mobile home parks? While it may appear tornadoes target mobile home parks, they actually do not. Mobile homes are, in general, much easier for a tornado to damage and destroy than well-built houses and office buildings.

A mobile home, or manufactured home, by definition, is built at a factory and taken to the place they will occupy, so they are much more affordable than a house built on-site. They are often built with lighter-weight materials, which do not hold up well in tornadic winds. Straight-line winds can also destroy a mobile home as easily as a tornado, especially one that is not anchored.

Any wind gust that is sustained for 3 seconds over 50 mph can cause damage to mobile homes. The problem of warning and sheltering mobile home residents has become the biggest obstacle to continuing to reduce death tolls from tornadoes. Do wider tornadoes cause more damage? There is a statistical trend toward wide tornadoes having higher EF-scale damage.

This can be because of stronger winds or because of greater opportunity for targets to be damaged, or a combination of both. However, the size or shape of any particular tornado does not say anything conclusive about its strength. Some small tornadoes can still do very violent damage of EF4 or EF5. And, some very large tornadoes over a quarter-mile wide have produced only weak damage.

What is the difference between a tornado and a cyclone? However critics say the idea is unworkable, and would create more problems than it solves.

Every year hundreds of twisters tear through communities in the great north-south corridor between the Rocky and Appalachian Mountain ranges. The proposed walls would not shelter towns - they would not be strong enough to block a tornado in motion. Instead, they would soften the clashing streams of hot southern and cold northern air, which form twisters in the first place, Prof Tao said. As evidence, he points to China - where only three tornadoes were recorded last year, compared to in the US.

China too has flat plain valleys running north-south, but the difference is they are broken up by east-west hill ranges. Although only a few hundred metres high, they are enough to take the sting out of air currents before they clash, Prof Tao believes. Back in the US, he notes that the flat farmlands of Illinois experience wildly varying risks of twisters.

Just look at the map - at Gallatin you have the Shawnee Hills. These act like a barrier m ft high, protecting Gallatin, he says. Rather than create an eyesore, the walls could be "attractively" designed, says Prof Tao.

He cites the Comcast skyscraper in Philadelphia - also about m high, and built with a reinforced glass exterior. It could be a beautiful landmark," he told BBC News. It would take a few years to finish the walls but we could build them in stages.