Tornado

“ The swirling wind starts a swirl of water and just as the land tornado picks up a house and drops it a quarter of a mile away, so the water tornado picks up its swirling column of water and carries it along. Surface fish, driftwood, anything in its path goes up to tear, like a huge hourglass, across the sea. But so temperamental is the sea tornado that anything which changes the current of air, will break its hold and the swirling upraised column collapses, dropping its tons on tons of water back into the sea to crush anything beneath. ”

“ Our walls were flecked with every colour of the rainbow, whilst in the east, above the sombre wooded banks, would often rise red masses of curious-looking clouds, precursors of the approaching tornado. Sometimes the sun had not quite set before the lightning would begin to flash, and the thunder to roll incessantly, sounding like the roar of artillery in battle. ”

“ Suddenly a terrific onslaught of wind, like the crack of a heavy whip, beats to the ground trees, herbage, birds. It whirls the maddened vultures round and round, upsetting everything in its track.
It is the tornado, bursting its chains. All things tremble and reel; nature is convulsed under the terrible might of the hurricane passing on its way. ”

“ Lashed to staunch timbers, the trembling remnant of the crew soon found out, while terror crowned their pallid brows, that the tornado was driving them right straight upon a rock-bound coast—foaming and hopeless for them, notwithstanding that from the summit of the bold cliffs, a light-house gleamed forth its eye coldly—cynically upon the night—in mockery lighting the way to watery death and ruin. Steadily, clearly it glimmered out upon the darkness, distinctly showing them the white froth at the foot of the cliff—the anger-foam of the demon of the storm. ”

“ He rose to lay on more fuel, and while he was in the act the tornado broke upon him. The wind, as he had forecast, came out of the southeast. In an instant it was roaring and hurtling against the farther side of his island rampart like the charge of a hundred thousand horse and tossing the sand of the dunes like blown hair into the northwest, while the rain in one wild deluge lashed the frantic sea and weltering lagoon as with the whips of the Furies. ”

“ Hot and violent winds, exceeding the fiercest tornado that ever blows, and downpours of rain such as our milder, slower earth to-day knows nothing of, might have assailed us. The water of the downpour would have rushed by us, muddy with the spoils of the rocks, coming together into torrents, cutting deep gorges and canyons as they hurried past to deposit their sediment in the earliest seas. Through the clouds we should have glimpsed a great sun moving visibly across the sky, and in its wake and in the wake of the moon would have come a diurnal tide of earthquake and upheaval. ”

“ Wagons, agricultural implements, and household furniture, will be carried a long distance and broken into fragments by the tornado, while delicate mirrors and sets of glass-ware may be spared. The giants of the forest will be torn to splinters, while the modest flowers beneath them are left blooming as sweetly as if nothing had occurred! ”

“ With the roaring in my ears I sprang up, staring into the forest vista, and at the same instant, out of the crashing forest, sped Professor Smawl, skirts tucked up, thin legs flying like bicycle-spokes. I shouted, but the crashing drowned my voice. Then all at once the solid earth began to shake, and with the rush and roar of a tornado a gigantic living thing burst out of the forest before our eyes—a vast shadowy bulk that rocked and rolled along, mowing down trees in its course. ”

“ Not one artilleryman in a million could hit a tornado in a vital part. Do these people think tornadoes are going around with a target tied on them, for experts to shoot cannon balls at? A tornado is like one of these Fourth of July nigger-chasers, that you touch off and it starts somewhere and changes its mind and turns around and goes sideways, and when it finds a girl looking the other way it everlastingly makes for her and runs into her pantalets when she would swear it was pointed the other way. ”

“ In two hours' time from the swamping of the boat the booming of the sea, and a ragged mass of cloud, lit by an occasional flash and slowly falling away from a pale and watery moon, were the only evidences of the tornado which had raged so lately.
"The storm is over," said Patricia, breaking a long silence.
"Yes," said Landless. "You have nothing to fear now. Would you not like to walk a little? You must be sadly chilled and weary with long sitting."
"Yes, I would," she answered, with a sigh of relief. "Let us walk towards those trees, and see if forest or water be beyond them." ”

“ The white glare of early morning flooded the room, but the snow-storm had changed to driving sleet and the panes were iced from corner to corner with frozen rain-drift. How we dragged through two more days, while the gale raved with unabated fury, I do not know. Poor Eric was for rushing into the blinding whirl, that turned earth and air into one white tornado ”

“ The rain generally falls at night, often with a violent tornado soon after sundown. Heavy clouds appear on the horizon, the tornado arch advances, the wind lulls, and with breathless suspense everything prepares for the onslaught of the storm. ”

“ Sometimes the tornado acts like an enormous scoop, catching up every movable thing and sweeping it miles away: and again it becomes a depositor, as if, tired of carrying so much dead weight, it dumped it upon the earth preparatory to grabbing up a new cargo. ”

“ Then a tornado swept through villages and jungles, accompanied by terrific lightning and thunder. Nature is wide awake now, and has begun work with a haste and energy that seem intended to atone for the long idleness. ”

“ All the rough and unruly Winds are out of the way, for there is to be a match to-night between the North-east wind and a Southern tornado, to see which can blow the harder, and all their relations have gone to look on. ”

“ But once the wind begins to blow with a velocity that bespeaks the readvent of the tornado, he throws off inhibition and goes out in the open, holds up the torch that shall light the whole world, and with his megaphone from the top of Helicon shouts: "This way to the revolution." ”

“ 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.
The tornado is essentially an American storm, doubtless caused by the running together, in the southeast quadrant of a cyclone, of cold northwest currents and warm winds from the southeast, at a time when the latter are saturated with moisture. ”

“ It consists of air and rain, and yet the lighter substance, driven with the force of a panic passion, can uproot the solid materials, as the tornado the tall trees and the stone dwellings of humanity, and turn the secular lives of men into desolation and despair. When it has passed, all seems calm, and only the human wreckage remains to show the power of the storm that has swept by. ”

“ The tornado is always associated with thunder and hail storms of extremely violent type. If we regard a thunderstorm as due to the uprushing of a column of air, from, say, the 4,000 to the 20,000 or even 30,000 feet level this giving rise to, and in turn being maintained by, the condensation of aqueous vapour, with the resulting phenomena of rain, hail, electric discharge, &c., and this column of air to take on a rapid spiral movement, which it naturally does, then the downward extension of this spiral movement to the ground provides the tornado. ”

“ It must be alive. Does it mind the wind?” inquired I, having no answer to my first remark, “for look there, the little clouds are coming up fast,” and I pointed to the horizon, where some small clouds were rising up, and which were, as I knew from experience and constantly watching the sky, a sign of a short but violent gale, or tornado, of which we usually had one, if not two, at this season of the year.
“Yes; confound it,” replied my companion, grinding his teeth, “it will blow her off! ”

“ The tornado seemed to spring out of the southwestern part of the city as if it came from the swollen waters of the Wabash River. It first smashed into Gardentown, a suburb of the city, where a great many working people live, and every building in its path crumpled down before it. The lightning sped over building after building, setting many of them on fire. ”

“ Ross repeated. "But how did they find that out?"
"Not by any instrument," said Anton; "there isn't anything made that a tornado wouldn't level to the ground. But you can figure that from the size and weight of objects lifted and from the effects of tornadoes. Anyhow, the inside of a [Pg 272] tornado is like a vacuum, the pressure is so low.
"I remember reading in a tornado account of a storm in New England where the funnel passed within twenty yards of a house. It was exactly as if a house filled with air were suddenly plunged into a vacuum. ”

“ And it is doubted whether any storm could ever attain, much less continue, the terrific force of that most dreaded of winds of temperate zones, the tornado—a storm which obeys all the laws of cyclones, but differs from ordinary cyclones in having a vortex core only a few feet or yards in diameter—without the aid of those great masses of condensing vapor which always accompany it in the form of storm-clouds. ”

“ When we see a waterspout in the distance we do not think of a dragon and his tail, like the Chinese, but consider how to get out of its path or to break it up by firing guns. The whirlwind on the western prairies takes the specially intense form known as a tornado, and there the ingenuity of the American nation is exercised in the construction of tornado-proof houses. ”

“ The conditions which precede the coming of a tornado are, in general, the same as those in advance of a thunder-storm—that is, an indraft of hot, moist air beneath a cooler layer, thus establishing unstable conditions. An upward draft is started, the intensity of which becomes so great that the inflowing winds are given a rapid spiral motion about a calm centre. ”

“ 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. ”

“ A tornado seems to partake much of the nature of a whirlwind, or perhaps of a water-spout, but is more violent in its effects. It commences very suddenly: several clouds being previously drawn together, a spout of wind, proceeding from them, strikes the ground, in a round spot of a few rods or perches in diameter, and proceeds thus half a mile or a mile. The proneness of its descent makes it rebound from the earth, throwing such things as are moveable before it, sideways, or in a lateral direction from it. A vapour, mist, or rain, descends with it, by which the path of it is marked with wet. ”

“ When overtaken by these wild winds, they soon learned that their only safety lay in rolling themselves up as much into the shape of balls as possible, so that the tornado would be powerless to pick them up and hurl them to destruction. ”

“ The southern side of the track of desolation, however, presents evidence of the greatest power. The maple and other forest trees were frequently twisted entirely off, showing conclusively, that while they were first struck by the progressive motion, the rotary motion was sufficiently quick to locate the falling trunk. The great power of the storm-cloud was due to its revolution. In fact, this marks the difference between the high wind and the hurricane or tornado. ”

“ From the appearance of the funnel formed in a tornado, it looks as though the currents were descending from the cloud to the earth, when in reality the currents are ascending. The ascending current draws on the warm and moist air near the surface of the earth for its supply, and this inrush of air in a spiral form into the low pressure core made by the higher whirl constitutes the destructive blast of the tornado.
Tornadoes approach rapidly, and it is therefore almost impossible for those who happen to be in their path to escape their violence. ”

“ The thunder, rolls, and lightning flashes more frequently. The clouds bank up higher and higher, and advance more slowly, until at last they become stationary. These are the ordinary indications of a violent progressive summer storm, which sometimes ends in a tornado.
Like a winter storm, it is produced by the meeting and conflict of the polar and tropical currents under greater differences of temperature and other conditions, and is therefore attended with more violent and complex phenomena than those of a winter storm. ”

“ The tornado occasionally originates at sea and whirls up a heavy column of water for a few feet, which, meeting the dark funnel from above, presents the appearance of a pillar of water reaching the clouds. ”

“ But sudden thunder-storms, where the clouds gather in dense, mountain-like formations, as the one shown in the photographed illustration, furnish the very largest raindrops which fall, unless we except those which may sometimes result from the melting of large hailstones, which emanate sometimes from very violent storms of the whirling, tornado type. ”

“ The arch of the culvert was not thirty feet away, but had we not been protected by the embankment we should have been beaten down and killed ere we reached its shelter.
The stones and gravel from the roadway above were dashed into our faces by the outer circle of the tornado. Grasping Miss Harding by the arm I dragged or carried her, I know not which, to the yawning but welcome opening of the old stone archway.
I cannot describe what followed. It was as if the earth were in its death throes. ”