What is the difference between a cyclone, tornado and twister?
Good question, by the way. Lets start with Tornado. Spawned from super cell thunderstorms, its a violent rotation of a column of air. They can happen anywhere, given the right conditions but are most common in the United States between the Rockies and the Appalachians. Generally thought of as the most destructive of all weather systems as winds around a tornado can obtain and sustain winds over 200 mph. Very difficult to study, as they are near impossible to predict, so the damage they leave behind is how they are categorized using The Enhanced Fujita Scale. You can read about it here. Next we’ll talk about twisters. Real simple. Read above. Twister is just a slang word used to describe tornados. Now on to cyclones. I left this one for last as “cyclone” could be all encompassing. Generally, its used to describe an area of closed rotation with a central low pressure. In the United States we call them hurricane
