ODD TRICKS OF TORNADOES

Evening Post, Volume CXXII, Issue 106, 31 October 1936, Page 27

ODD TRICKS OF TORNADOES

Tornadoes have killed 5258 persons arid caused damage to property estimated at £40,000,000 in the United States in the last twenty years, writes S. D. Flora, Topeka meteorologist, in the "Modern' Mechanics Magazine." "Twisters" are his hobby.

Cows sailing unharmed through the' air, splinters driven through plate glass windows, and straws embedded in planks are among the oddities listed from the 2702 tornadoes recorded officially in that time. ... /. .■ There -is no regularity about visita-^ tions of tornadoes...The town of Codell, Kansas* was struck- three , times in three successive years, 1916, 1917, 1918. Each time the tornado occurred on May,, 20 and at almost the same hour of the day. The last time the town ; was -practically wiped out. Residents stick close-to their basements on May 20, but the town has not been struck since. . .

. In .the Gainesville tornado of last April .6, an automobile was thrown into a hole- left by an uprooted tree. A tree was snapped off. and then replanted upright a short distance away. A large hog- was picked up in the suburbs and set down on a . public square without being injured.

■A wood splinter was driven through a. large plate glass window in the Santa Fe storehouse at Wellington, Kansas, during- the tornado of November 18, 1934. The splinter made a clean hole without cracking the glass.

In a Louisiana tornado, a rooster was carried several miles and set down

in another flock of chickens. In the Great Bend, Kansas,, . tornado of November 10, 1915, an.unmailed letter was carried eighty-five . miles to the north-east. In another Kansas tornado .a herd.of cattle was struck and sailed through the air like; birds.

A tornado, still miscalled a cyclone in spite of, educational efforts of the weather bureau, is caused; under certain conditions:by abnormally warm, moist air being overrun by colder air. The warm air, being-lighter, is forced up through theicolder, much as a cork is: forced up in water, and- its movement is governed by the same law of moving liquids that sets up a whirl in a draining bathtub except that in the case of the tornado the movement is upward. >

The speed of the whirling winds in a tornado' has never been'measured, but has been estirriateii a^ 300 to 500 miles'1 an hour. The' decreased pressure in the whirl actually causes buildings to explode when the normal atmospheric pressure inside is suddenly exerted against the lowered pressure outside.. Tornadoes usually travel towards the north-east, and most commonly form in the late afternoon; but they have been known to approach from almost; every direction and to occur v at all hours. Conditions that favour tornadoes are warm, "sticky" mornings, . especially between March 15 and June 15, over an area located-to the south-east-of a centre Of low- atmospheric pressure ir. 'the United States of' America.. ,•■ ' ; ■