a thought that occured to me

[ButterflyBlood]

do tornados ever happen outside of the Americas?

while I see no reason that they couldn't, I've never heard of any in Europe, Africa or Asia.

[redqueen]

1. Yes, I know they do in India

I don't think they're called tornadoes there, though.

[camero]

3. I'm just guessing

But I think they are called cyclones there. I'm not sure though.

[Lostmessage]

2. Yes they do but they give them American Girl names

Like Mary, Sue, Ann, Debby, Jane, etc.

We give our Tornado's foreign names.

[Rabrrrrrr]

4. We don't name tornados at all

we name hurricanes

:-)

[camero]

5. We should give them boy names though

Truthfully, I would like to see one named Bob. :) or Skip. They bounce here in Florida.

[Meatshake]

8. they do give them boy names

they rotate.

http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/aboutnames.shtml

edit: i'm not very bright.

[Rabrrrrrr]

10. Welcome to DU MeatShake!

Love your icon.

Sorry that one of your first posts was erroneous...

Still, a helpful link. :hi:

[camero]

11. LOL welcome to DU

:toast: I was thinking of tornadoes. Thanks for correcting me that they are not called cyclones or typhoons over there, that they are names for hurricanes. :)

And yeah, they rotate but they also bounce here. :P

[Fenris]

6. I think it is highly unlikely that tornados do not happen outside NA

I think there recently was a tornado in England. They're rare there, I know that.

[Rabrrrrrr]

7. And Oahu just had some

VERY rare for that.

Sandstorms in arabia - perhaps those are tornado equivalent? I don't know.

But I should think any place that has large plains and flat areas runs the risk of tornados. But I don't have any thing to back up that hypothesis.

[greatauntoftriplets]

9. I have seen waterspouts at sea in the Caribbean.

Similar to a tornado, but waterborne.

[Pithlet]

12. I've heard of one happening in England.

I do know they happen elsewhere, but not with the frequency that they do here in the US, particularly the tornado belt.

We get a lot of them around here, and I live where it is now tornado season :scared:

[geniph]

13. Tornadoes can happen anywhere

There's a combination of things - strong winds, flat ground, upwelling warm moist air, downwelling cold dry air - that are required to produce large tornadoes. (Smaller, less-destructive tornadoes can occur where these things exist on a smaller scale.) There's only a few places on the planet where these conditions consistently exist. The other place I know of that has fairly frequent tornadoes are on the Russian steppes. They happen less frequently there because it doesn't tend to be as warm, and there's not a large source of moist air (the south and southwest winds from the Gulf of Mexico are what cause Tornado Alley to be so productive of supercells).

On average, there are 33 tornadoes per year in the United Kingdom (they're often called whirlwinds there). That's the highest incidence per land area in the world. Most are not severe tornadoes, such as the Great Plains experience.

[rucky]

14. No, because there are not Trailer Parks outside the Americas.

And everybody knows that trailer parks cause tornadoes.

[trof]

15. Rucky wins, Rucky wins!

We have actually set up a decoy trailer...woops...s'cuse me...
MOBILE HOME PARK about two miles from our neighborhood. That pore sucker really takes a beatin', but we're OK.