Joey Green's Mad Scientist

Tornado Machine

What You Need

Sand paper
Two clean, empty 2-liter soda bottles with plastic screw-on caps
Krazy Glue
Black electrical tape
Electric drill with 3/8-inch bit
Water
Blue food coloring
Measuring spoons
Silver glitter

What to Do
Sand the tops of the two screw-on bottle caps, then glue the tops of the caps together with Krazy Glue. Let dry. Wrap black electrical tape around the circumference of the two caps to secure them together. With adult supervision, drill a 3/8-inch hole through the center of the two caps.
Fill one of the bottles two-thirds full with water, add five drops of blue food coloring and 1 tablespoon silver glitter. Thread the joined caps onto this bottle, then thread the second bottle to the free end of the cap.
Turn the Tornado Machine upside down so the blue glitter water pours into the empty bottle. Swirl the full bottle counterclockwise until a tornado funnel forms.

What Happens
The water whirls down into the empty bottle like a tornado.

Why It Works
The swirling water spins faster toward the hole, creating a vortex as the water molecules come closer to the center. The resulting outward force pushes the liquid out of the center, creating a funnel.

Bizarre Facts

According to a study of 304 tornadoes in the United States between 1950 and 1991, tornadoes are more likely to strike on May 16 than any other day of the year.
The winds of a tornado whirl counterclockwise north of the equator and clockwise south of the equator.
The average tornado lasts less than thirty minutes and travels about twenty miles at ten to twenty-five miles per hour.
The overwhelming majority of tornadoes—approximately seven hundred a year—occur in the central and southeast United States, better known as Tornado Alley.
The calm center of a tornado as it passes overhead lasts from two minutes to a half hour.
When a tornado touches the surface of an ocean or lake, it becomes a waterspout, sucking water up inside the spinning wind. Waterspouts appear to rise up out of the water like a sea monster, possibly explaining the origin of those legends.

I'll Get You, My Pretty
The tornado in The Wizard of Oz was actually a funnel made of muslin stiffened with wire. To bring the muslin tornado to life, a prop man was lowered inside the muslin tube to pull the wires in and out.

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