The news has been riddled about the tornado that devastated Joplin, MO on Sunday. This tornado was classified as an EF4 tornado, however, after more information has been received, the tornado has been updated to an EF5 tornado, the strongest of them all. What tickled my fancy is that this tornado was multi-vortexed. I am usually not interested in meteorology, but due to the sudden attention given to it, I got curious. Tornadoes usually form when a warm inflow of air collides with cool air that is descending. 
This warm air is the fuel for the tornadoes. What creates the funnel is the cool air wrapping around the moist, warm air. The vortex that formed in Missouri was an EF 5 like I said before. This intense form of tornado usually forms from a super cell of a storm. This is the origin of the tornadoes (the super cell). Multi-vortex tornadoes do not occur that often either.
The Joplin multi-vortex tornado was horribly spectacular. Multi-vortex tornadoes usually form in EF4 or EF5 tornadoes. Small vortices develop within a larger vortex and rotate around a general center. These smaller vortices are usually spinning faster than the general vortex. This creates the perfect destruction machine. I honestly have never seen anything like this…even the 90’s movie TWISTER didn’t have this one in it I believe. An actual multi-vortex tornado and a simulation can be seen below.
Multi Vortex Tornado (Oklahoma)
Multi Vortex Simulation