What do we call this spinning, twisting windstorm?

A tornado is the right word for a spinning, twisting column of wind that drops down from a storm cloud all the way to the ground. Inside a powerful thunderstorm, warm rising air and cold sinking air can start spinning together, and if that spin tightens and stretches down as a narrow funnel, it becomes a tornado with wind strong enough to fling cars and rip roofs off houses.

A hurricane is a much bigger, slower swirling storm that forms over warm ocean water and can last for days, very different from a tornado's fast, narrow funnel. A blizzard is a snowstorm with strong wind and cold, not a spinning funnel at all, so neither matches the description.

Tornadoes can spin with winds over 300 kilometers per hour in the strongest cases, fast enough to strip bark clean off trees, and the United States sees more tornadoes than any other country because of how warm Gulf air and cool dry air collide across its central plains.