What kind of energy is in Tornadoes?

Question

What form of energy is in a Tornado which makes it move, throw things about, etc.

Answer 1

I find it interesting how people answer these question. In some respects you are correct but in some cases, only partially.

Air has mass. We often sort of ignore that fact that it does since we live at the bottom of the ocean of this compressible gas mixture we call the atmosphere. Since it has mass it has weight. Density is weight per unit volume. The more dense something is the more weight per unit volume it has. The most dense air is that closest to the the surface of the earth (bottom of the ocean of air). Mass that is moving has kinetic energy. So the energy is the mass times the velocity that it is moving. So, if you get that mass (and air isn't too heavy in comparison to say a rock) moving but moving at a speed that is very high, it has a lot of energy that most people don't realize is there. (Example, try moving 4 by 8 foot sheets of lightweight plywood on a breezy day. It is a lot harder than you would think.) In the days of sailing ships, the wind was used to transport goods and people across oceans. Lots of power there if you use it.

The kinetic power of air at high speed (especially once you get the air moving at 150 mph or more) easily does all the damage as seen in the pictures from tornadoes.

In fact, the kinetic engergy is only a very small fraction of the engergy of a thunderstorm. The thunderstorm is a very powerful heat engine that is using the transfer of heat energy in water vapor (in form of latent heat) to produce all its interesting properties.

Answer 2

The winds of a tornado are the most violent winds that occur on the earth. They whirl around the centre of the storm at more than 320 km per hour.
As it is the greatest killer tornado in the history was one of the largest and fastest tornadoes ever recorded - its violent winds destroyed buildings, uprooted huge trees, carried cars and other large objects long distances and killed 689 people.

Answer 3

Heat energy, part of which is converted into Electrical energy.So it contains both.Heat energy produces winds and electical energy produces lightning and thunder which again releases heat into the atmosphere.

Answer 4

Kinetic energy - the air builds up force from velocity which comes from rising heat.

Answer 5

Kinetic.

Answer 6

Is called mother nature.

Answer 7

wind power.