snapped this photo of a rain-wrapped funnel around 7:20 a.m.Hicks said the photo was taken just west of Ballard, Missouri, in rural Bates County.Bates County was under an active tornado warning at ...

Accident of geography The Great Plains has been likened to a funnel ... and a wide, high range of mountains extending from north to south on the west side," says Harold Brooks, a tornado expert ...

Modern standards qualify the so-called Tri-State Tornado as an F5, a mile-wide funnel with wind speeds greater than 260 mph (418 kph). Perhaps the best evidence of its destructive handiwork was ...