What does a tornado do to the crops and dirt when it goes over a field?
Depending on the forward movement of the tornado and how strongly the tornado is interacting with the ground, there can be a wide variety of effects. A nearly stationary tornado which has extended to near ground level has been known to dig (actually blow) a trench as much as 3 feet deep. Other tornadoes have gone over wheat fields and just barely bent over the stalks. • If a tornado can do that to crops, what can it do to a road? Most of the time, it doesn’t do anything to a road. But intense tornadoes that have extended downward to very near ground level have ripped up hundreds of feet of asphalt pavement and thrown it up to a hundred yards away. Our opinion is that perhaps the edge of the uppermost layer of asphalt begins to “peel” and the rest follows little by little. It is not likely that it comes up all at once. The process has never been observed or photographed, so it is still somewhat of a mystery. • In Twister, the pickets on the picket fence went flying off–is that what wou
