What are Tornadoes ?

What are Tornadoes ? Correct Answer Powerful whirling winds, accompanied by funnel-shaped clouds

The correct answer is Powerful whirling winds, accompanied by funnel-shaped clouds.

Key Points

• Tornadoes, known as the most violent atmospheric calamity, in some sense are the enfant terrible of the cyclones: they cannot develop without powerful tower-like cumulonimbus clouds formed either in a tropical cyclone or on a cold front in an extratropical cyclone.
• A tornado is a violently rotating column of air extending from a thunderstorm to the ground. Hence, option 1st is correct.

Additional Information

• Tornadoes develop from severe thunderstorms in warm, moist, unstable air along and ahead of cold fronts. Such thunderstorms also may generate large hail and damaging winds. When intense springtime storm systems produce large, persistent areas that support tornado development, major outbreaks can occur. During the late spring, tornadic thunderstorms can develop in the southern High Plains along a “dry line,” the interface between warm, moist air to the east and hot, dry air to the west. 
• (A tornado can potentially develop from a cumulonimbus cloud not connected with any cyclone or front, but it would never become very powerful.) 
• And a bit like with children, their number can vary significantly from one "parent" to another: most cyclones do not have tornadoes at all, while some cyclones (both tropical and extratropical) generate more than 100 of them. Furthermore, sometimes one can observe "twins": several (up to 5 or even more) tornadoes generated by one cloud.
• One would expect that more powerful "parents" (i.e. tropical cyclones) would also cause stronger tornadoes, but in fact, the most powerful and destructive tornadoes are those generated on cold fronts of extratropical cyclones.

Map of Tornado Formation:

[ alt="paulm tornado" src="https://scied.ucar.edu/sites/default/files/images/large_image_for_image_content/paulm_tornado.jpg" style="width: 544px; height: 262px;">