Why don't Tornadoes penetrate the ground?

Question

Could it be do to the negative charge of the earth? Should people that live in, "Tornado Alley," build homes around a grounded enclosure? Ever notice that large cities with grounded buildings don't have Tornadoes?

Answer 1

I've noticed how tornado's, never seem to spin up a hill, like a top would spin out, a tornado seems to unwind as well, I know because I have been through a bad tornado, once before. it seemed to stick to all the low lined areas, and spared our place on the hill, this was Xenia Ohio in 1974

Answer 2

Do you understand what a tornado is? It is swirling air. There are no air masses below the surface of the ground to start swirling. The swirling air is also not a good drill -- it is not hard enough and focused enough on one spot, that's why tornadoes do not drill holes in the ground.

Tornadoes seldom hit the downtown areas of large cities simply because those downtown areas occupy very very little of the total land area -- especially in tornado alley. The largest cities are in regions with little tornado activity. But fly over the country sometime, you might notice that the US is about 98% open land and farms, 2% urban and suburban build-up, and about 0.00001% large downtown buildings. The tornado is just playing the odds.

Answer 3

Tornadoes really do not discriminate between open farm land or urban locations. The key to tornado genesis has to do with the change in wind direction and speed with height. 'Tornado Alley' just happens to be in a prime location where the land is flat enough and warm air from the Gulf of Mexico is in constant battle with cold air driving south from Canada and the northern US. This often creates the ideal conditions needed for tornado development.

As far as large cities not having tornadoes, there are plenty of examples to site that will show that this can happen. But as a user has already pointed out, its a game of 'odds'. There is less land occuppied as 'major urban cities' then there is open areas of the country.

For an example of a tornado / waterspout that hit a major city. Here are some links from the tornado that hit Miami, FL in 1997. This was a front page cover of the USA Today.

http://www.srh.noaa.gov/mfl/history/tornado97.jpg

http://www.cnn.com/WEATHER/9705/12/miami.tornado/

Here is a link to a movie of it as captured by a news helicopter that day:
http://www.cnn.com/WEATHER/9705/12/miami.tornado/miami.tornado.lg.29sec.mov

Answer 4

The forces involved are horizontal at the Earth's surface and not vertical. If the tornado were to remain at one location for some period of time the frictional forces at the surface would eventually wear away some of the surface, but tornadoes do not stay put so that possibility is rather limited.

Answer 5

Tornadoes only destroy stuff by the force of wind. It doesn't have a weight to it, so it's still to weak to do anything to the ground.

The only reason we have tornado alley, is because that is the flat plains of the U.S. The more flat land the higher chance of a tornado forming. I also live in tornado alley.