audio 
2. Tornado season has begun in the United States. More than sixty tornadoes were reported in the country's southeast during the last weekend in April. One tornado measuring more than a kilometer wide struck the state of Mississippi। It destroyed homes, blocked roads and cut off electricity.3. The storms were
blamed for ten deaths in Mississippi, and two others in nearby Alabama. Weather experts believe it was the most intense tornado event since two thousand eight.
4. A tornado is a violently turning tube of air suspended from a thick cloud. It extends from a thunderstorm in the sky down to the ground. The shape is like a funnel: wide at the top, narrower at the bottom.
5. Tornadoes form when winds blowing in different directions meet in the clouds and begin to turn in circles. Warm air rising from below causes the wind tube to reach toward the ground. Because of their circular movement, these windstorms are also known as “twisters”.
6. The most severe tornadoes can reach wind speeds of three hundred twenty kilometers an hour or more. In some cases, the resulting paths of damage can stretch more than a kilometer wide and eighty kilometers long.
7. With a tornado, bigger does not necessarily mean stronger. Large tornadoes can be weak. And some of the smallest tornadoes can be the most damaging. But no matter what the size, tornado winds are the strongest on Earth. Tornadoes have been known to carry homes, cars and trees from one place to another.
They can also destroy anything in their path.
8. Tornadoes have been observed on every continent except Antarctica. But experts say they are most commonly seen in the United States. On average, eight hundred tornadoes are reported nationwide each year.
9. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration keeps records of tornado sightings. It says tornadoes kill eighty people and injure one thousand five
hundred others nationwide in an average year.
10. Tornadoes are observed most often in the central part of the United States, where the land is mostly flat. The area where the most violent tornadoes usually happen is known as “Tornado Alley.” This area is considered to extend from north-central Texas to North Dakota.
11. Tornadoes can happen any time of the year. But most happen from late winter to the middle of summer. In some areas, there is a second high season in autumn.
12. Tornado seasons are the result of wind and weather patterns. During spring, warm air moves north and mixes with cold air remaining from winter. In autumn, the opposite happens. Cold weather moves south and combines with the last of the warm air from summer.
13. Tornadoes can strike with little or no warning. Most injuries happen when flying objects hit people. Experts say the best place to be is in an underground shelter, or a small, windowless room in the lowest part of a building.
14. People driving during a tornado are told to find low ground and lay flat, facedown, with their hands covering their head. People in the path of a tornado often have just minutes to make life-or-death decisions.
15. The deadliest American tornado on record is the Tri-State Tornado of March eighteenth, nineteen twenty-five. It tore across Missouri, Illinois and Indiana. About seven hundred people were killed.
16. A "tornado outbreak" is often defined as six or more tornadoes produced by the same weather system within a day. But the outbreak of April third and fourth, nineteen seventy-four, set a national record. It is remembered as the "Super Outbreak." One hundred forty-eight tornadoes struck during a twenty-four-hour period. More than three hundred people were killed and nearly six thousand others injured.
Vocabulary
|
Nenhum comentário:
Postar um comentário