Comment by jandrewrogers
18 hours ago
The quantity of energy in an F5 tornado is literally on the same scale as a nuclear weapon, albeit delivered more slowly. Given that context, their ability erase towns should not be that surprising. You can't engineer a practical structure capable of withstanding those kinds of forces.
Of course you can. Arcologies! Super practical, compact, safe, efficient! Tornadoes do most of the damage at the bottom, so taller structures gain advantage. If there's a huge mass pushing down on the bottom parts the tornado won't be able to dislodge it.
> quantity of energy […] is […] on the same scale as a nuclear weapon
> albeit delivered more slowly.
> those kinds of forces.
Tornados are very powerful, but if you deliver the same amount of energy over a longer time frame, the forces go down accordingly.
On the other hand, tornados do damage on a relatively smaller path. That may mean they’re as destructive as a nuclear bomb, but within a much smaller affected area.