Tornados freak me out… ok truth be told lightening and rough weather freaks me out. Here in Houston we’ve seen our fair share of bad weather in the last month. Last week I saw lightening strike the Williams Tower in the Galleria while I was driving home with the kids. Not cool…. but they thought it was amazing.
Regardless of my fears, I love discussing weather with the kids because we experience it everyday. I recently got the neatest gadget that creates a “tornado in a bottle”. Now that’s my kind of weather observation!
You can make this yourself with a tornado tube (found here), two empty 2 liter bottles, and some water. You can throw in some glitter or food coloring to spice things up a bit!
The best thing about this experiment is once you set it up then your kiddos can do it over and over again with little help. Now that’s my kind of science experiment!
Here is our tornado in action!
It is quite mesmerizing isn’t it? It made me feel like I was watching this again!
Official poster of the original Broadway production
So what is happening with this wicked tornado?
A real tornado starts its twisting action when warm air quickly rises and sucks the surrounding air upward. Our wicked bottle tornado starts to twist when we swirl the bottle of water around in a circle.
The twisting causes a vortex to form, water starts to pour out of the hole between the two bottles, and air can pass between the lower bottle through the center of the vortex.
What a great way to see a tornado in action from the safety of your own kitchen! I hope you and your kids enjoy making your own wicked tornados!
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