Tornado

How does the exhibit work?

Press the green button once. A tornado appears.

What is the science behind it?

You’ve probably heard of a tornado. You know, a funnel of air like a trunk that rotates rapidly. A tornado forms under a storm cloud when:

• the air at high altitude is very cold and the air on the ground is very warm (then the air rises fast)

• the wind direction changes as it rises and the wind is very powerful at a high altitude (that makes the air spin).

Of course, we’re not making a tornado with a storm cloud here. We’re using ventilators to make the air rise and turn. Since air is invisible, we’ve added some tiny drops of water using a fog machine. In that way you can still easy watch it rotate!

Tornados can be dangerous. Fortunately, they’re quite uncommon in Belgium. We see about 5 to 10 of them each year.

Tornado with sharks?

Tornadoes full of man-eating sharks, like in the movie Sharknado, do they really exist?

Well, tornadoes with water do exist. When a rapidly rotating trunk of air forms above a lake, sea or ocean, it sucks up the water. We call this kind of ‘tornado with water’ a water spout.

A shark spout has never been seen. Even so, people have already spotted water spouts with other creatures, including fish and frogs. According to a report from 1887 there was even once one with alligators. Gatornado!

Tornado with fire

There are also fire tornados. They have a trunk of -yes, you’ve guessed it- fire. These sometimes occur during forest fires. The heat of the fire heats the air at ground level and makes it rise rapidly. The base of the air column sucks the cooler air from the environment. Giving you an enormous trunk.

A fire tornado can reach heights of up to 50 metres. Extremely dangerous!