Tornadoes and Hailstorms - Damages, Seasons,and Details.

1/24/2023 (Permalink)

someone watching the storm forming

SERVPRO of Moore and many of us are all too familiar with tornadoes and their associated thunderstorms, hail storms, and the property damage these cause. In fact, it’s common to learn at an early age how best to prepare for these frequent natural disasters; general tips include going into your basement (if you have one) or navigating to a room without windows, staying low, and covering your head. While these basic facts are certainly helpful to remember, there are many additional facts and helpful tips you may not be aware of when it comes to these potentially violent weather events and their subsequent damage. 

On a basic level, a tornado is a forcefully rotating column of air, descending from the clouds of a thunderstorm. This column of air is commonly referred to as a funnel cloud. The Enhanced Fujita scale measures the strength of a tornado’s wind, from EF-0 to EF-5, with EF-5 being the strongest. 

Tornadoes are often accompanied or precipitated by severe thunderstorms, including hail. Hail is considered a form of precipitation, as it’s solid ice that forms during thunderstorm updrafts. When raindrops are carried upward and freeze, they collide with liquid water droplets; this process compounds and increases the inches in diameter of the hail size before its weight can no longer be supported by the wind, so it falls to the ground.