Tornado Quiz
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89 free Tornado trivia questions with answers — nature quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
63 free tornado trivia questions with answers. Think you know tornadoes? Our tornado quiz puts your storm knowledge to the test with 89 questions about nature's most violent phenomena, from the Enhanced Fujita Scale to record-breaking twisters.
30 of 89 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01In the 1996 film Twister, which farm animal sails past the storm chasers' truck in mid-air?
A cow
A cow tumbles past the windscreen; like the tornadoes around it, the animal never existed outside the computers of the effects house Industrial Light & Magic.
Q 02At what time of day are tornadoes most likely to strike in the United States?
Late afternoon
Late afternoon is the peak, with most tornadoes striking between about 4 and 9 p.m.: by then a day of sunshine has heated the ground and given thunderstorms their fuel.
Q 03Which U.S. state experiences the highest average number of tornadoes per year?
Texas
Texas tops the count mainly because it is so big: measured per square mile it sits well down the list, behind states such as Florida and Kansas.
Q 04In 1987 a violent F4 tornado crossed the Continental Divide and tore on into which US national park?
Yellowstone
Yellowstone's 1987 tornado is a standard rebuttal to the belief that mountains stop twisters: rated a violent F4, it climbed right over the Continental Divide.
Q 05Which 1925 tornado is credited with the longest track on record, more than 200 miles across the Midwest?
Tri-State Tornado
The Tri-State Tornado raced across Missouri, Illinois and Indiana at about 60 mph on 18 March 1925, killing 695 people; some researchers suspect its record path was really a series of tornadoes.
Q 06What is the name of the US network of trained volunteer storm spotters who report tornadoes to forecasters?
Skywarn
Skywarn volunteers still matter in the radar age because the beam passes above the ground and cannot see every tornado, so forecasters rely on trained eyes to confirm what is happening below.
Q 07Where is safest in a tornado if your house has no basement?
A small interior room on the lowest floor
A small interior room on the lowest floor, such as a bathroom or closet, puts as many walls as possible between you and the storm, which is the whole point of the advice.
Q 08With no building to shelter in, where do safety agencies say to lie flat as a tornado nears?
In a ditch or low ground
In a ditch or low ground, face down with your arms over your head, is the last resort; forecasters say to keep away from trees and cars, which the wind can throw on top of you.
Q 09What type of cloud typically produces tornadoes?
Cumulonimbus
Cumulonimbus clouds are the towering thunderheads that breed tornadoes; they climb until the air stops rising near the tropopause, so the top spreads sideways into the familiar flat anvil.
Q 10What is a tornado called when it forms over a lake or the sea?
Waterspout
A waterspout comes in two kinds: the tornadic sort drops from a thunderstorm like any twister, but the far commoner fair-weather spout starts at the surface and builds upward.
Q 11What do forecasters call the Plains boundary where desert air from the west meets moist Gulf air?
Dry line
A dry line brings a sharp drop in humidity as it passes; it pushes east across the Plains by day, often setting off the storms that spawn tornadoes, then drifts back west in the evening.
Q 12Which atmospheric ingredient gives a thunderstorm the rotation it needs to spawn a tornado?
Wind shear
Wind shear, a change in wind speed or direction with height, sets a horizontal tube of air rolling; rising air inside the storm then tilts that roll upright.
Q 13What part of a supercell thunderstorm is a tornado most likely to descend from?
Wall cloud
Q 21What term describes the rare Northern Hemisphere tornadoes that spin clockwise instead of counterclockwise?
Anticyclonic
Anticyclonic tornadoes spin clockwise, the reverse of nearly every other twister north of the equator; in the Southern Hemisphere the rule flips and clockwise is the normal direction.
Q 22In the 2013 TV movie Sharknado, a freak storm rains man-eating sharks on which flooded American city?
Los Angeles
Los Angeles is swamped by a storm that lifts sharks out of the ocean and drops them in the streets; reviewers hailed the result as 'so bad it's good', and sequels followed.
Q 23What percentage of all tornadoes are classified as violent (EF4 or EF5)?
About 1%
The wall cloud is an abrupt lowering of the storm's rain-free base; spotters watch it for persistent rotation, which often shows up there minutes before a tornado forms.
Q 14The deadliest tornado on record killed about 1,300 people in 1989 in which country?
Bangladesh
Bangladesh's Daulatpur-Saturia tornado of 26 April 1989 killed about 1,300 people; crowded villages, flimsy housing and little knowledge of tornado safety make its twisters the deadliest anywhere.
Q 15Approximately how many tornadoes occur in the United States in an average year?
About 1,200
About 1,200 is the modern average, but the true figure is unknown: better radar, more spotters and phone cameras now catch weak twisters that once went unrecorded.
Q 16What do storm chasers call the rain-wrapped area of a supercell where a hidden tornado may lurk?
The bear's cage
The bear's cage is chaser slang: the 'bear' is the tornado and the 'cage' is the curtain of heavy rain wrapped around it, so it can only be seen from dangerously close range.
Q 17What colour do tornadoes often turn after crossing Oklahoma's clay-rich soil?
Reddish-brown
Reddish-brown funnels are common over Oklahoma because a tornado has no colour of its own: it takes on the hue of the dust and soil it pulls in, and there the dirt is red.
Q 18What is the term for a weak, short-lived whirlwind that spins up along the leading edge of a thunderstorm's outflow?
Gustnado
A gustnado is not a true tornado: it is an eddy in a storm's outflow with no link to any rotation in the cloud above, though its spinning dust is often reported as one.
Q 19The top tornado rating, EF5, begins at estimated winds above what speed?
200 mph
200 mph is the EF5 threshold; the original 1971 scale set its top category at 261 mph, but engineers later found the same wreckage needs far slower winds, so the bar came down in 2007.
Q 20Which U.S. government agency is responsible for issuing tornado watches?
Storm Prediction Center
The Storm Prediction Center in Norman, Oklahoma issues every tornado watch for the lower 48 states, while the more urgent tornado warnings come from local forecast offices.
About 1% of tornadoes reach EF4 or EF5; the true share may be a little higher, because ratings rest on damage and a violent twister that crosses only open country is rated low.
Q 24What kind of tornado is a landspout?
One that forms without a mesocyclone
A landspout is one that forms without a mesocyclone: its spin starts at the ground and is stretched upward by a growing cloud, which is why most are weak and short-lived.
Q 25Most tornadoes stay on the ground for roughly how long?
A few minutes
A few minutes is typical: the average is about five, and many of the hours-long tornadoes in old records are now thought to have been several twisters in a row.
Q 26Which actor plays swaggering storm-chasing influencer Tyler Owens in the 2024 film Twisters?
Glen Powell
Glen Powell plays the cocky YouTube chaser whose crew, written off as glory hounds, turns out to spend much of what it earns on food and aid for tornado victims.
Q 27What is a spinning cone of cloud hanging beneath a thunderstorm called before it reaches the ground?
Funnel cloud
A funnel cloud becomes a tornado only on touching down, but the name can mislead: a tornado's winds can already be at the ground before the visible funnel reaches it.
Q 28Which supercell feature wraps around the mesocyclone and helps tighten low-level rotation into a tornado?
Rear flank downdraft
The rear flank downdraft sinks at the back of the storm and curls around its rotation; spotters know it by the 'clear slot' of brighter sky it cuts into the cloud base.
Q 29Which US city was struck by devastating tornadoes in 1999, 2003 and 2013?
Moore, Oklahoma
Moore, Oklahoma took an F5 in 1999, an F4 in 2003 and an EF5 in 2013; the last killed seven children when a wall collapsed at Plaza Towers Elementary School.
Q 30Community tornado sirens are designed mainly to alert people who are where?
Outdoors
Outdoors is the whole design brief: sirens are not built to be heard inside a house, and no national rule requires them, so each town decides whether to have any at all.