CHICOPEE, Mass. (WWLP) – Many across the south and west have been impacted by tornadoes over the past week.

The big story for this week has been the tornadoes that have impacted areas like Arkansas, Illinois, and Delaware.

When looking into how tornadoes form, the first ingredients that go into making a tornado are warm, humid air colliding with cold, dry air. Light winds at the surface and strong upper-level winds a couple of thousand feet above our heads are the next steps that create a rotating column of air.

As this column rotates horizontally it allows for air to be pushed upwards in the atmosphere and this is called lift or updraft. This rotating column of air eventually turns vertical creating a wall cloud. This cloud then creates enough spin and lift in the atmosphere creating a tornado.