Essential Tornado Safety Tips You Should Know

TORNADOES

Tornadoes are nature’s most violent storms. Spawned from powerful thunderstorms, tornadoes can cause fatalities and devastate a neighborhood in seconds. A tornado appears as a rotating, funnel-shaped cloud that extends from a thunderstorm to the ground with whirling winds that can reach 300 miles per hour. Damage paths can be in excess of one mile wide and 50 miles long. Every state is at some risk from this hazard. Some tornadoes are clearly visible, while rain or nearby low-hanging clouds obscure others. Occasionally, tornadoes develop so rapidly that little, if any, advance warning is possible. Before a tornado hits, the wind may die down and the air may become very still. A cloud of debris can mark the location of a tornado even if a funnel is not visible. Tornadoes generally occur near the trailing edge of a thunderstorm. It is not uncommon to see clear, sunlit skies behind a tornado.

US tornadoes leave 27 dead, destroy town

Rescue workers searched for survivors on Saturday after scores of tornadoes tore across the central United States, killing at least 27 people and wiping out whole communities.

Trucks and trees were tossed aside like playthings on Friday as deadly funnel clouds descended on five states.

The images were surreal: a school bus smashed through the wall of a house, trucks thrown into lakes, solid brick homes reduced to rubble and wooden ones smashed into kindling, mobile homes flipped like tin cans.

Related: 12 Interesting Tornado Facts

The death toll in Indiana reached 13 late on Friday, officials said.

"Early reports indicate the heaviest damage is concentrated in southeastern Indiana including substantial damage in Henryville in Clark County, Marysville in Clark County, and Pekin and New Pekin in Washington County," the state Joint Information Center said in a statement.

12 Interesting Tornado Facts You Should Know

Despite improved warnings and forecasts over the past few decades, tornadoes still cause many deaths each year. To learn a little more about these violent storms, here are 12 interesting facts that illustrate how destructive tornadoes can be, where they can occur and how to prepare for them.