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MAY,1930 MONTHLY WEATHER REVIEWSEEING THE INSIDE OF A TORNADO

By ALONZO . JUSTICE[Weather Bureau office. Dodge City, Kans.]

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Although the incidents herein set forth occurred nearlytwo years ago, it is thought that they are sufficientlyinteresting to be reported even at this date. I t was just16 months to a day from the time the events happenedth at the writer heard a direct account of them from theman whose extraordinary experience forms the basis ofthis story.Mr. Will Keller, R farmer of near Greensbu ,Kans., isthe man to whom reference is made, and the? llowing issubstantially his story:

It wa s on the afternoon of J un e 22, 1928, between 3 an d 4 oclock.I was ou t in my field with my family looking over th e ruins of ourwheat crop which had just been completely destroyed by a hail-storm. I noticed a n umbrella-shaped cloud in th e west and southwestand from its appearance suspected that there was a tornado in it.The air had that peculiar oppressiveness which nearly alwaysprecedes th e coming of a tornado.But my attention being on other matters, I did not watch theappro ach of th e cloud. However, its nearness soon caused me totake another look at it . I saw at once that my suspicions werecorrect, for hanging from t he greenish-black base of th e cloud wasnot just one tornado, bu t three.One of th e tornadoes was already perilously near and apparentlyheaded directly for ou r place. I lost no time therefore in hurryingwith my family to our cyclone cellar.The family h ad entered t he cellar and I was in th e doorway justabou t to enter a nd close the door when I decided tha t I would takea last look at the approaching tornado. I have seen a number ofthese things a nd h ave never become panic-stricken when near th em.So I did not lose my head now, th ough th e approaching tornadowas indeed a n impressive sight.The surrounding country is level and there was nothiiig to ob-Rtruct th e view. The re was litt le or no rain falling from the cloud.Two of th e tornadoe s were some distance away an d looked to me likegreat ropes dangling from the clouds, but the near one was shapedmore like a funnel with ragged clouds surrounding it. It appearedto b e much larger and more energetic than th e others and it occu-pied t he centr al position of t he cloud, the grea t cumulus dome beingdirectly over i t.

As I paused to look I saw that the lower end which had beensweeping the ground was beginning to rise. I knew what thatmeant, so I kept my position. I knew that I wascomparativelysafe and I knew tha t if th e tornado again dipped I could dr op downan d close the door before any h arm could be done.Steadily th e tornado came on, the end gradually rising above th eground. I could have stood there only a few seconds but so iiu-pressed was I with what was going on t hat it wenied a 1mg time.A t last th e great shaggy end of th e funnel hung directly overhead.Everything was as still as death. There was a strong gassy odor8nd it seemed that I could not breathe. Ther e was a screaming,hissing sound coming directly from th e end of th e funnel. Ilooked up and to my astonishment I saw right up into th e heart ofthe tornado. There was a circular opening in th e center of t hefunnel, about 50 or 100 feet in diameter, and estending straightupward for a distance of at least one half mile, as best I couldjudge u nder th e circumstances. Th e walls of th is openin?; were ofrotating clouds and the whole was made brilliantly visible byconstant flashes of lightning which zigzagyd f rom hide to side.Had it not been for the lightning I could not have seen the open-ing, not any distance u p into it anyway.Around the lower rim of the great vortex small tornadoes wereconstantly forming and breaking away. These looked like tails asthey w rithed their way around th e end of t he funnel. It was thesethat made the hissing noise.I noticed that the direction of rotati on of t he great whirl wasanticlockwise, but the small twisters rotated both ways-someone way and some another.The opening was entirely hollow except for something which Icould not esactly make out, but suppose that it was a detachedwind cloud. This thing was in the center and was moving up anddown. 1 had plentyof time t o get a good view of t he whole thing, inside and out . Itcame from th e direction of Greensburg, which town is 3 iiiiles westand 1mile north of m y place. Its course was not i n a straig ht line,

See Figure 2.

The tornado was not traveling at a great speed.

.but it zigzagged across the country, in a general northeastedirection.After it passed my place it. a.Txin dipped an d str uck an d denished the house and barn of n Twiner by the name of Evans. TEvans family, like ourselvea, lied been out, looking over thhailed-out wh eat and saw th e t.ornado coming. No t having tito reach their cellar the y took refuge under a snialI bluff t,liat fact o th e leeward of the approaching t,ornado. The y Iny downon the ground and caught hold of some plum bushes which ftunately grew within their reach. As it, was, t.liey felt) themselvlifted from the ground. Mr. Evans said that he could see twreckage of his house, amonx it being the cook stove, going rouan d round over his head. Th e eldest. child, a girl of 17, being most esposed, had her clothing completely torn off. Bu t nonethe family were hurt.I am n ot th e first one to lay claims to having seen the inside otornado. I remember that in 1915 a tornado passed near Mullville and a hired man on a farm over which the tor nado passed htaken refuge in the barn. As the tornado passed over th e bathe door was blown open and the ma n sa w up into it,, and t,his olike the one I saw, was hollow and lit up by light,ning. Ashired man was not well known, no one paid much attent,ion to whhe said. [Mr . Keller thought th at this tornado w as t8heone shoin photograph opposite p. 44 8 of MONTHLY WEATHERREVIEW1919.1

According to Mr. L . E. Wait, president of the Greenburg State Bank, the tornado passed the outskirtsGreensburg, striking and demolishing some outhousAs it passed Greensburg it swept the ground and madenoise like dis tant heavy hail. Mr . Wait and othewatched it RS it traveled eastward toward the Iiellfarm and saw it rise from the ground. Mr. Wait mthat from the rear it looked like a sawed-off cylindeFrom Mr. Wait the writer first heard of Mr. Iielleesperienc.e. Mr Wait made a trip from GreensburgDodge City, a distance of 50 miles, bringing Mr. Kelwith him for the express purpose of having him relahis euperie.nce to the writer.From Mr. Wait and members of his family and froMr. Corns, cashier of the Greensburg St,a te Bank, tfollowing additional account of the achions of the tornawas gathered.After leaving the Evans farm it continued to bounc(as one witness described it) its way across t8heeastehalf of Kiowa County and was last heard of in P raCounty. It le,ft a patch here and there where it struthe ground, not of wrecked buildings, for there were. more buildings in its path after the Evans farm, bof torn-up ground. It tore holes and plowed furrofrom a few inches deep to several feet deep.Mr. Corns said that he saw a furrow which it plowacross a field of wheat. The furrow was from 2 to 3 fewide and as deep as the ground had been plowed, abo6 inc,hes. The dir t was thrown 0ve.r on ew h side of t

furrow just as it might have been if a plow had made A farmer whose land had been marked by the tornasaid that it made a furrow deep enough to bury a horin.Mr. William Cobb, resident of Gre,ensburg and ownof a number of farms in Kiowa County, said that ttornado crossed one of his pastures of buffalo-grass sand that it plowed a furrow a mile long, in places fro4 to 6 feet deep, and that the whole thing looked liwhere there had been a grading for a railroad. Tdirt was piled along the side of the furrow, just asthrown there by hand or plow or dragged there scrapers. It was reported that farmers used sc,rap

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206 MONTHLY WEATHER REVIEW MA Y ,193and horses to level up the ground where the tornado ing the Cobb pasture, had all been twice sown in wheahad disturbed it. and only a few faint traces c,ould be found.Mr. Wait made a trip from Greensburg eastward along Mr. Eeller is a man apparently between 35 and 4the path which the tornado traveled, for the purpose years of age. His reputation for truthfulness and sobrietof obtaining, if possible, photographs of some of the is of the best. A parently he is entirely capable otorn-up ground. Bu t the trip was made 18 months making careful an p reliable observations.after the occurrence of the tornado and th e land includ-

T O R N A D O A T G R A N D RAPIDS, MICH., MAY 2, 1930By WILLIAMH . TRACY

[Weather Bureau Of?lca, Grand Rapids, Mieh.]The most destructive local windstorm of which there general throughout the middle and upper Mississippis any record struck this city during the early morning of valleys during the afternoon and night of May 1.May 2. Storm was of true tornado or twister type The first point where material damage occurred is inand was apparently one of a series of similar storms that the southwest portion of the city about one-half miloccurred in southern Michigan during the night of from the eastern bank of the Grand River. The storm folMay 1-2. lowed a course that was somewhat southeast of northeastpassing from the factory district through par t of thbest residential section, and the last indication of tornadiaction was in the Hodenpgle woods, near the northernshore of Reeds Lake; the path was approximatelymiles long and it s width about 350 feet.Due to darkness no funnel cloud or other peculiacloud formation or glow was observed, although progresof the storm was carefully noted by observer on duty athis office. That this storm was a true tornado is indicated by the fact that destruction was not uniformalong the path, but showed several points of maximumdamage; the roar or rumble that is typical of tornadoewas reported by several parties, and was distinctlheard by the undersigned, who resides about 75 0 feet fromthe path . Felled trees along the path were lying withtheir roots to the southwest and their tops to the northeast on the north side, and with their roots to the northwest and tops to the southeast on the south side othe path. Another excellent indication of its tornadi

character is shown in the damage a t the Luce FurniturCo.)s factory and the building of the Columbian StoragCo . ;both of these cases the walls were blown out by thexertion of the inside pressure, and the debris thrown in tthe street; several large plateglass windows along thpath showed th is same influence.The total estimated damage of $1,000,000 as givein the newspaper reports has been checked as far apossible and seems reasonably correct. The greatesThe masimum force of the storm struck this city at damage was in the factory district, where the storm12:32 a. m., central standard time, when the Weather struck first, and to telephone, electric power, and streeBureau anemometer on the roof of the Grand Rapids railway lines; about 70 per cent of the total damagNational Bank Building registered an extreme velocity of occurred here. The loss to the individual property72 miles an hour from southwest. Anemometer is located owner was relatively light, but the area affected wa1%miles from the nearest point in the storms path. Pres- large. It is estimated that 1,500 shade trees wersure had been falling steadily since noon of May 1, due to either thrown down completely or seriously damageda storm center of considerable magnitude over northern No loss of life occurred, and only two persons werManitoba; during the passage of the storm there was an slightly injured, both by falling d6bris. The fact that thabrupt rise of 0.12 of an inch. (See Fig. 1) . Wind was storm occurred a t night when factories were closed anfrom south-southwest prior to the storm and veered to few people were on the street accounts for no deaths anwest-northwest after its passage. Heavy rain began at few injuries.12:29 a. m., and 0.23 of an inch fell in 9 minutes; rain Only four well-defined tornadoes have been recordecontinued, but at a slow rate; hail accompanied the rain in this city since the establishing of a Weather Bureafrom 12:32 a. m. to 1 2 ~ 3 7 . m.; hailstones were about sta tion here. Tho damage occasioned by that of Ma y 2one-quarter inch in diameter and caused no damage. 1930, is much greater than occurred in any of the previouThunderstorms and high temperatures for the season were storms.

MAY 4 /3JU MHYZ

GX??NDRWP/DS, M/CHFIGURE.-Barograph trace during passage 01 th e tornado