Introduction: Tornado in a Bottle

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Do you remember your 6th or 7th grade Science Class? yeah, me neither, but after some research in my "Old School Papers" I found out that we studied natural disasters, and one of them was tornadoes. First, a little information on a tornado:

"A tornado is a natural storm disaster created when a front of hot, humid air and a front of cool, dry air collide in the atmosphere. The warm air is pushed upward, which causes winds carrying water droplets to rotate into a vortex, speeding at up to 300 mph in the center. This spinning column of air and water droplets then begins to stretch between the earth and a convection cloud (made up of water droplets) to create a tornado. The water droplets form from the condensation of water vapor in the area within the funnel where there is low temperature and pressure. This makes the funnel visible to our eyes, because the large number of water droplets block out the sun's light, just like a thunder cloud." (www.haverford.edu)

This little experiment shows the physical properties of a tornado on a small scale.

Step 1: Supplies

To make a Bottled Tornado, you will need the following:

- two empty 2 or 3 litre bottles (cleaned)
- water

optional:

- a tornado tube
- ducktape
- washer
- lamp oil

Step 2: Assembly

Take your clean empty bottles, and fill one 2/3 full of water. Place the other bottle (empty) on to the coupler, or use duct-tape to connect the bottles together. Your done! Its a rather brain-dead process which anyone can do, but there is some technique to it as well.

To Make the Tornado:

- Quickly invert the lower bottle (full) to the top, and with a smooth circular motion, rotate the top bottle (full) to make the tornado.

Step 3: Optional Science Part

Okay, hopefully you plan on reading this the whole way through. This is where the optional-ness comes into play. Before pouring your water into the one bottle, pour some coloured lamp oil into it, and then add the water. The oil is more dense than the water, so they separate from each other instead of combining. Thus, when the tornado commences the oil will make up most of the tornado, b/c it is more dense than the water, and will be pulled down first.

You can also change how big the hole is in between the two bottles by swapping out washers. Experiment between large holes, small holes, even squares.

Step 4: Quick Video

Heres the video:


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