Not in a literal sense, despite what you may have read in many older references, news stories, or even damage survey reports. By definition (above), a tornado must be in contact with the ground. There is disagreement in meteorology over whether or not multiple touchdowns of the same vortex orfunnel cloud mean different tornadoes (a strict interpretation). In either event, stories of skipping tornadoes usually mean.
Some tornadoes are narrow, only 250 feet (75 meters) across where they touch the ground. Other, massive tornadoes can be up to two miles across. Often a tornado will touch the ground for only a few minutes and travel less than a mile.
A tornado can cause damage on the ground even when a visible funnel cloud has not formed. If you see a funnel cloud that does not appear to be touching the ground, the wind and circulation may still reach the ground and cause extensive damage.
You see, depending on the configuration of the airflow outside of the tornado, sometimes there is not ENOUGH “inflow” toward the center, and so blobs of air outside the tornado do not get very close to the center of rotation before they are lifted upward off the ground.
How long does it take for a tornado to form and touch?
Tornadoes can form extremely quickly under the right conditions, forming and touching the ground within minutes. It may take some time for the proper rotation to form high in the thunderstorm, but a funnel cloud can drop from the sky with very little warning.
A frequent inquiry we ran across in our research was “Why is it so hard to see tornadoes?”.
Because wind is invisible, it is hard to see a tornado unless it forms a condensation funnel made up of water droplets, dust and debris. Tornadoes can be among the most violent phenomena of all atmospheric storms we experience. What we do: Read more about NSSL’s tornado research here. Where do tornadoes occur?
Do funnel clouds turn into tornadoes when they hit the ground?
Wall clouds, even those that rotate like a tornado, are attached to the rest of the storm cloud but don’t touch the ground. Even funnel clouds, while there’s a good chance that they’ll turn into a tornado, aren’t officially classified as such until they touch down.
This begs the query “Do tornadoes rotate downward?”
Tornadoes are complex and can have multiple small structures called “sub vortices” rotating inside the larger parent circulation. There may be some downward motion inside the tornado itself, but observations of this and other properties of tornadoes are difficult as the instrumentation needed to observe them doesn’t survive the tornado itself.
Another thing we asked ourselves was: how do tornadoes get their shape?
One source claimed that once the storm rumbles through, rising air tilts this tube from its horizontal position to the more recognizable vertical funnel shape. From there, tornadoes can have wind speeds up to 300 mph and cause a great deal of destruction where they touch the Earth.
“A tornado always forms and appears as a funnel cloud.” False! A tornado can cause damage on the ground even when a visible funnel cloud has not formed. If you see a funnel cloud that does not appear to be touching the ground, the wind and circulation may still reach the ground and cause extensive damage.