A tornado is often made visible by a distinctive funnel-shaped cloud. Commonly called the condensation funnel, the funnel cloud is a tapered column of water droplets that extends downward from the base of the parent cloud. It is commonly mixed with and perhaps enveloped by dust and debris lifted from the surface. The funnel cloud may be present but not visible due to heavy rain. Over a tornado’s lifetime, the size and shape of the funnel cloud may change markedly, reflecting changes in the intensity of the winds, the moisture content of the inflowing air, properties of the ground, and other factors. Very frequently the condensation funnel extends from the parent cloud only partway to the ground, and in very dry conditions there may be no condensation funnel. Generally, the more moist the air and the more intense the tornado, the larger the funnel cloud.

The funnel cloud usually outlines only the innermost core. Typically, its diameter is at most one-tenth that of the overall tornado circulation. Indeed, a tornado can occur without a funnel cloud being present at all. The funnel cloud’s length can range from tens of metres to several kilometres; its diameter can span a few metres to hundreds of metres. Funnel clouds of weak tornadoes are usually cone-shaped, while strong and violent tornadoes form short, broad, cylindrical pillars. Long, rope-like tubes that trail off horizontally are common in the waning phase of many tornadoes.

Duration

The lifetime of a tornado is directly related to its intensity, with more intense tornadoes tending to last longer. On average, a tornado is on the ground for about 15 minutes, but this value is misleading because the average is heavily weighted by the rare but long-lived violent tornadoes. Most tornadoes are weak, lasting only about two to three minutes on average. A typical lifetime for strong tornadoes is about 8 minutes, while for violent events it is about 25 minutes. In exceptional cases, violent events can last more than three hours.

Speed and direction of movement

The movement of a tornado is determined by the motion of the generating thunderstorm. The average tornado moves at a speed of about 12 to 13 metres per second, or 43 to 47 km per hour (about 39 to 43 feet per second, or 27 to 29 miles per hour), but some have remained nearly stationary while others have traveled faster than 25 metres per second, or 90 km per hour (80 feet per second, or 55 miles per hour). As an extreme example, speeds of up to 33 metres per second, or 120 km per hour (110 feet per second, or 75 miles per hour) were measured in a tornado that struck Guin, Alabama, on April 3, 1974.

Most tornado-producing thunderstorms occur in a warm air mass that is under the influence of an active synoptic-scale low-pressure system (such a system covers about one-half of the continent). The middle-level winds (3 to 10 km [2 to 6 miles] in altitude) that in large part determine the direction of storm motion tend to be from the west or southwest in the Northern Hemisphere. Hence, most tornadoes (around 80 percent) come from the west or southwest and move to the east or northeast. Tornadoes move from northwest to southeast about 5 percent of the time. Many hurricane-related tornadoes have traveled east to west, as have a few Great Plains and Midwest tornadoes. In the Southern Hemisphere, storms (and consequently tornadoes) tend to move from the west or northwest to the east or southeast.

Tornado cyclones, tornado families, and long-track tornadoes

About 90 percent of tornadoes are associated with thunderstorms, usually supercells; this association accounts for many weak and almost all strong and violent tornadoes. The other 10 percent of tornado occurrences are associated with rapidly growing cumulus clouds; these vortices are almost always weak and short-lived.

As a very rough estimate, about 100,000 thunderstorms occur in the United States each year. About 10 percent of these (or about 10,000 per year) will become severe thunderstorms, and only about 5 percent to 10 percent of these severe storms (or about 500 to 1,000 per year) will produce tornadoes.

The typical tornado-producing thunderstorm lasts for two to three hours and usually produces one or two relatively short-lived tornadoes. The period of storm maturity during which a tornado is most likely to form may last only a few tens of minutes. However, on rare occasions a storm may produce a tornado cyclone (a core of concentrated rotation within the storm from which tornadoes are spawned) that is stable and long-lived. The strength of the tornado cyclone usually pulsates, creating a sequence of tornadoes. This gives rise to what is known as a tornado family. Tornado families typically have two or three members, though they can be much larger. During the Super Outbreak of April 3–4, 1974, in the United States, a single storm traveling along the Ohio River produced a family with eight members spread over several hundred kilometres.

On very rare occasions, the strength of a tornado cyclone will remain nearly constant for several hours, forming a single, long-lasting tornado with a continuous damage path many times the average length. This is referred to as a long-track tornado. Long-track tornadoes can be difficult to distinguish from tornado families. For instance, the Great Tri-State Tornado of March 18, 1925, is credited with a path length of 352 km (219 miles), though it cannot be proved that this event, which affected Missouri, Illinois, and Indiana, was an individual tornado or a series in the same family. On the other hand, the Monticello, Indiana, tornado on April 3, 1974 (part of the Super Outbreak mentioned above), produced a continuous track of damage for over 160 km (99 miles). It was also the fifth and final member of a tornado family.