What exactly is the description of a cyclone, and how is it different than a tornado?

Question

Is geography significant?

Answer 1

A tornado is defined by the Glossary of Meteorology as "a violently rotating column of air, in contact with the ground, either pendant from a cumuliform cloud or underneath a cumuliform cloud, and often (but not always) visible as a funnel cloud..." In practice, for a vortex to be classified as a tornado, it must be in contact with both the ground and the cloud base. Scientists have not yet created a complete definition of the word; for example, there is disagreement as to whether separate touchdowns of the same funnel constitute separate tornadoes.

The word "tornado" is an altered form of the Spanish word tronada, which means "thunderstorm". This in turn was taken from the Latin tonare, meaning "to thunder". It most likely reached its present form through a combination of the Spanish tronada and tornar ("to turn"); however, this may be a folk etymology. A tornado is also commonly referred to as a twister, and is also sometimes referred to by the old-fashioned colloquial term cyclone.

Answer 2

Just remember that a tornado is a cyclone but on a much smaller scale than lows associated with Hurricanes, Typhoons and Intense low pressure circulations.

Answer 3

Tropical Cyclones occur in the Southern Hemisphere.  The Northern Hemisphere equivalent is called a Hurricane.  Hurricanes rotate clockwise, whereas Cyclones rotate Anti Clockwise, otherwise they are the same thing.  

A tornado, twister or waterspout is where the column of high velocity twisting air reaches the ground or sea surface.

Answer 4

Technically, a cyclone (note lower case lettering) is ANY rotating low pressure area.  A tornado is one type of cyclone, as are hurricanes, mid latitude low pressure centers, thermal lows, etc.  If you mean a Cyclone (upper case) as in what just hit Burma (Myanmar), than it is the same thing as a hurricane or typhoon, but called a Cyclone because of where it was located.  It is much larger than a tornado and is driven by different processes.

Answer 5

Cyclone - a region of low air pressure associated with stormy weather. a tropical cyclone is called a hurricane or typhoon.

Tornado - a violent storm which includes destructive whirlwinds.