Severe Weather in Tanzania

      In this blog I will be talking about the severe weather that takes place in Tanzania. For starters I'll talk about Tornadoes. The formation of thunderstorms form due to a supercell thunder storm. In order for a supercell thunderstorm to form in needs to be in the presence of unstable air, forced to rise by the topography of the land, fronts, and Vertical wind sheer for the formation of the vortex tubes to form the rotating mesocyclone. In the United States tornadoes are move towards the northeast. This is the dominant direction because of the southerly winds as well as the mid-latitude westerlies.

The closest thing I could find similar to a Tornado is a Sand Tornado and a video on Vimeo of a baby tornado. Other than that I can't find any information stating that Tornadoes do not occur in Tanzania.
http://vimeo.com/98710323
http://www.stuff.co.nz/life-style/blogs/love-in-a-hot-climate/7897136/Tanzania-9-Things-They-Don-t-Tell-You-In-Guidebooks

The Average number of Tornadoes recorded in the US pe
r year is over 1,000 per year
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/climate-information/extreme-events/us-tornado-climatology

   Based on this map it can be seen that Tornadoes are not common in Africa especially where Tanzania is located. Tanzania lies to North of the Hotspot zone on Africa. The increase of Tornadoes over the past 30 years could be due to various reasons. Change in land topography and or global warming could be two possibilities.
   
     Three main requirements for a tornado to form is Warm ocean Temp of 80 degrees Fahrenheit, Deep warm ocean layer that is 200m in depth, and Coriolis between 5 degrees N, S. Based on these requirements Tanzania does not meet these requirements. However if a Hurricane were to hit Tanzania it would be the south eastern part of it. In the Atlantic and East Pacific Hurricanes don't have a different name like other regions do. In the Indian ocean Near Australia are called Cyclones. Off the coast of China and Indonesia Hurricanes are called Typhoons.

  In the United States the general path that a hurricane follows a path towards the Northwest form Southeast due to the trade winds. This is the dominant path because the trade winds from the east  move it to the North and West. Hurricanes do not occur in Tanzania. Average Hurricanes in Tanzania are Zero. The Average Hurricanes in the US are 6.2 hurricanes per year