In fact, opening your windows is likely to make the damage worse , not better. Once a window is opened, the tornado’s powerful winds can rush directly into the home. This internal wind load presses upward on the roof and outward on the walls from the inside, greatly increasing the chance that the roof will be lifted off or the walls will collapse outward. A closed house with intact windows presents a relatively smooth, aerodynamic surface to the wind. An open house, by contrast, acts like a sail or a scoop, catching the wind and providing more surface area for the tornado to push against. Engineers at the Wind Science and Engineering Research Center at Texas Tech University have demonstrated through debris impact testing and pressure simulations that a closed building is far more likely to remain structurally intact than one with open windows. The primary culprit for structural failure is the wind’s lateral force and the uplift on the roof, not a sudden pressure change.
In conclusion, the idea of opening your windows during a tornado is a dangerous anachronism, a piece of folk wisdom that has been refuted by decades of scientific investigation. The destructive power of a tornado comes not from a sudden pressure drop, but from the immense kinetic energy of its rotating winds and the cloud of high-velocity missiles those winds carry. Opening your windows invites this destruction inside, weakens your home’s structural integrity, and wastes the precious seconds needed to seek proper shelter. When the sirens sound and the sky turns green, your course of action should be simple and decisive: leave the windows shut, leave the doors closed, and put as many barriers between you and the storm as possible. Get to the basement, the bathroom, or the closet, and cover your head. The only thing that opening a window will do is open you to the very danger you are trying to survive. should you open your windows during a tornado
For decades, a persistent piece of folk wisdom has clung to tornado safety lore: the idea that opening your windows before a tornado strikes will equalize air pressure between the inside and outside of your home, preventing the structure from exploding. This advice, often passed down through generations, seems logical on the surface. If a tornado is a vortex of extremely low pressure, then allowing that low pressure to enter the house should prevent a catastrophic pressure difference, much like opening a car window on a hot day to let air circulate. However, this seemingly intuitive advice is not only incorrect but dangerously misleading. The overwhelming consensus among meteorologists, engineers, and emergency management agencies, including the National Weather Service and FEMA, is clear: you should never open your windows during a tornado. Instead, you should immediately seek shelter in an interior room on the lowest floor, and leave your windows firmly closed. In fact, opening your windows is likely to