Safe and Sound
Time to Prepare for Severe Weather Season
The first emergency warning siren test of 2013 happens Saturday, March 2.
The information below is provided by the Farmington Hills Fire Department in an effort to help you understand local severe storm and tornado activity. What is a tornado and how do they form? A tornado is a column of violently rotating winds extending down from a thunderstorm cloud touching the surface of the earth. A tornado spins like a top and may sound like an airplane or a train. Before thunderstorms develop, a change in wind direction and an increase in wind speed, with increasing height, create an invisible, horizontal spinning effect in the lower atmosphere. Rising air within the thunderstorm’s updraft tilts the rotating air from horizontal to vertical. When do tornadoes generally occur? Most tornadoes occur from April through …
