EPTOn May 27 2011 10:57 P3T3R wrote:
stupid question but are tornadoes able to lift cars? cuz in movies and shows they do but on youtube, never seen it o,o
stupid question but are tornadoes able to lift cars? cuz in movies and shows they do but on youtube, never seen it o,o
It just depends what you mean by 'lift'
I think there is a common misconception that all tornadoes have a large amount of 'sucking' power. It's more like watching a racing car get backwards going 200mph and go flying. Despite the lack of aerodynamics on most vehicles the horizontal component of the wind can easily provide enough lift to get substantial vehicles airborne. Once they are already flying the weaker vertical component can help to lift them a bit, but generally it's more of a tossing along or a few feet above the ground in all but the strongest (like Joplin) tornadoes. There are (rare) cases of vehicles (mostly things like empty tractor trailer-trailers that have a high lift/weight ratio) being lifted substantially (100s of feet) but it's pretty rare.
![[image loading]](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c1/Moore_Oklahoma_Tornado_Damage.jpg)
