The new air world : $b The science of meteorology simplifiedMoore, Willis L. (Willis Luther)
Science
The new air world : $b The science of meteorology simplified
Moore, Willis L. (Willis Luther)
Meteorology
=Tornadoes.= The cyclone has a diameter of a thousand to two
thousand miles, the hurricane about one to three hundred and the
tornado only one to ten hundred _feet_. The hurricane is much more
destructive than the cyclone, and the tornado is incomparably greater
in velocity of gyration and rending force than the hurricane. New
England, Florida, and the wide region including the eastern slope
of the Rocky Mountains westward to the Pacific are nearly free from
the atmospheric convulsions that cause the tornadoes, and they are
infrequent in any Atlantic coast State, but numerous in the States
bordering on the Mississippi River, and in the eastern halves of
Oklahoma, Kansas, and Nebraska. During a year of great frequency of
tornadoes, about ninety storms occurred, while during some other
years the number has been as low as twenty. The direction generally
is toward the northeast. The average rate of movement of the tornado
cloud is about twenty-five miles per hour and the width of its
destructive path only five hundred to one thousand feet; the time of
passage is less than half a minute. It does not come upon one unseen
and unheralded. Many times the advancing funnel-shaped clouds may be
seen, and they always are accompanied by a great roar which may be
heard for miles. Except a tornado cellar, the cellar of a frame house
is the safest place. The writer has examined either the wrecks or the
records of hundreds of tornadoes and does not know of a single case
of a person being killed by a tornado in the cellar of a frame house.
If one is in the open and a tornado approaches, never flee to the
north or to the east, but rather to the northwest, and one needs to
travel but a short distance to pass out of the track of the monster.
The tornado always twists counter clockwise, the same as the cyclone
in whose southeast quadrant it nearly always occurs. On the southeast
side of the path there are indrafts; so that it is safer, unless the
track of the oncoming storm is clearly seen to be well to the north
of the observer, for one to run toward the northwest. Persons have
stood near to the north side of a tornado track during its passage
without suffering injury. If a cave, the cellar of a frame house, or
a narrow ditch cannot be reached, the best thing to do is to lie flat
on the ground as far from buildings and trees as possible.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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