Download
1 / 17
170 likes | 176 Vues
Learn about the formation and damage potential of tornadoes, as well as some interesting phenomena associated with them, including the infamous exploding feather theory. Discover the different categories of tornadoes on the Fujita Scale and the destructive power they possess.
E N D
The big players… • Warm, moist (mT) air masses - typically from the Gulf of Mexico • Cold dry air (cP) typically from Canada. • The large cold front formed combines with shearing wind (making the storm rotate) • Cumulonimbus clouds form, as does the possibility for tornado formation.
F0-F1 • F0 - Gale Tornado • 40-72 mph • Some damage to chimneys; breaks branches off trees; pushes over shallow-rooted trees; damages sign boards. • F1 - Moderate Tornado • 73-112 mph • The lower limit is the beginning of hurricane wind speed; peels surface off roofs; mobile homes pushed off foundations or overturned; moving autos pushed off the roads; attached garages may be destroyed.
F2-F3 • F2 - Significant tornado • 113-157 mph • Considerable damage. Roofs torn off frame houses; mobile homes demolished; boxcars pushed over; large trees snapped or uprooted; light object missiles generated. • F3 - Severe tornado • 158-206 mph • Roof and some walls torn off well constructed houses; trains overturned; most trees in groups uprooted.
F4-F5 • F4 - Devastating tornado • 207-260 mph • Well-constructed houses leveled; structures with weak foundations blown off some distance; cars thrown and large missiles generated. • F5 - Incredible tornado • 261-318 mph • Strong frame houses lifted off foundations and carried considerable distances to disintegrate; automobile sized missiles fly through the air in excess of 100 meters; trees debarked; steel reinforced concrete structures badly damaged. • Controlling a tornado?
Oddities- Elias Loomis and the Plucked Chicken • Within the damage descriptions of rural tornadoes, there will likely be mention of a chicken "stripped clean of every feather." • It has been suggested that the feathers explode off the bird in the tornado's low pressure. • Elias Loomis decided to test this theory…. • His goal was to gain insight into the wind speed needed to defeather a chicken
The Experiment… • An account written a few years later states: "In order to determine the velocity needed to strip feathers, the six-pounder (cannon) was loaded with five ounces of powder, and for a ball a chicken was killed. • The gun was pointed upwards and fired. • The feathers rose twenty or thirty feet and were scattered by the wind. • On examination, they were found to be pulled out clean, the skin seldom adhering to them. The body was torn into small fragments, only a part of which could be found. • The velocity was 341 miles per hour." Loomis speculated that if a live bird was fired at 100 miles per hour, the results would be more successful, but, to my knowledge he never attempted it.
Really Scientific? • That explanation does not hold up because the bird would be blown away long before experiencing the lowest pressure at the center of the tornado. • Secondly, the lowest pressure in a tornado is probably not low enough to explode a feather .... if indeed a feather would ever explode. • It is curious how the exploding feather theory became accepted by so many people over the years, even though the remains of an exploded feather was never found.
Some Additional Flying Debris!! • A 150 pound hog from "an unknown farm" was dropped into another cellar." • Two colts were reportedly carried to a height of 1000 feet, appearing as "specks in the sky," then were dropped to their death. • A pillow was carried 20 miles • A check from a Paint Rock, Alabama home was carried to Athens, Tennessee, a distance of about 105 miles. • At the Blue Hill Observatory, 35 miles east of Worcester, the director recovered a French music box, a three-foot-square aluminum trap door, a two-pound piece of roof, and a couch cover that was frozen solid. A piece of frozen mattress was recovered from Massachusetts Bay, near Weymouth. • A dog was observed being "carried aloft and away." The dog returned four hours later • Cows were carried aloft, set down unharmed, and "acted strangely" for several days • A 14-foot boat was carried a half mile
Other Oddities? • At Grant Jones' store, the south wall was blown down and scattered, but shelves and canned goods that stood against the wall were unmoved. • The Riverside Steam Laundry, built of stone and cement block, was left with only a fragment of upright wall, yet two nearby wooden shacks seemed almost untouched. • At the Moses Clay ranch, on the east edge of town, 1000 sheep were killed, the most ever killed by a single tornado. • A "rain of debris," receipts, checks, photographs, ledger sheets, money, clothing, shingles, and fragments of books fell on almost every farm north and wst of Glasco, 80 miles to the northeast.
Even more! • A necktie rack with 10 ties still attached was carried 40 miles • In Great Bend, an iron water hydrant was found full of splinters. Mail was lifted from the railroad depot and scattered for miles to the northeast. • Fictional oddities were added almost daily to the growing list of stories. An iron jug was blown inside out... a rooster was blown into a jug, with only its head sticking out of the neck of the container • If the idea of long flights of airborne items intrigues you, now is the time to visit the page of the Tornado Debris Project.
