The Long Watch: teacher key

Hurricanes and Tornadoes, grade 12 edition, written for 12th grade and up. Decades of sky watching come down to a few hard questions: what spins a storm, how well can anyone forecast it, and how do you rate what you could not measure? Read the evidence behind the forecasts.

Read the book. Print this page for the key.

Questions and answers

1. What is still unknown about tornadoes, as of November 2026?
   • Whether they spin
   • Exactly how a tornado funnel forms (answer)
   • Where Tornado Alley is
2. What makes a hurricane spin, according to the pages?
   • Wind shear alone
   • Its eyewall
   • The bending of moving air by the Coriolis effect (answer)
3. What was true of the original Fujita scale's precise wind speeds?
   • They were guesses not verified by science or engineering tests (answer)
   • They were measured by satellites
   • They came from radar
4. Which is wider, an average hurricane or the widest tornado?
   • The widest tornado
   • The average hurricane (answer)
   • Both are the same
5. Warm water of about 80 degrees Fahrenheit or more feeds a hurricane. What should forecasters expect if one moves over much cooler water?
   • It will be unaffected
   • It will weaken (answer)
   • It will become a tornado

Words

• supercell: rotating thunderstorm
• latent: hidden
• Coriolis: spin effect
• radiosonde: balloon instrument
• intensification: getting stronger
• mesocyclone: rotating updraft