From "The Ocean of Ain"
Blumstock, Rutgers University Press, 1959, pp 89-90
"On the afternoon of June 22, 1928, between three and four o'clock,
I noticed an umbrella-shaped cloud in the west and southwest and from
its appearance suspected there was a tornado in it. The air had that
peculiar oppressiveness which nearly always precedes the coming of a
tornado.
I saw at once my suspicions were correct. Hanging from the green-
ish black base of the cloud were three tornadoes. One was perilously
near and apparently headed directly for my place....
Two of the tornadoes were some distance away and looked like great
ropes dangling from the parent cloud, but the one nearest was shaped
more like a funnel, with ragged clouds surrounding it. It appeared
larger than the others and occupied the central position, with great
cumulus clouds over it.
Steadily the cloud came on, the end gradually rising above the
ground. I probably stood there only a few seconds, but was so impressed
with the sight it seemed like a long time. At last the great shaggy
end of the funnel hung directly overhead. Everything was still as death.
There was a strong, gassy odor, and it seemed as though I could not breathe.
There was a screaming, hissing sound coming directly from the end of the
funnel. I looked up, and to my astonishment I saw right into the heart
of the tornado. There was a circular opening in the center of the
funnel, about fifty to one hundred feet in diameter and extending
straight upward for a distance of at least half a mile, as best I could
judge under the circumstances. The walls of this opening were rotating
clouds and the whole was brilliantly lighted with constant flashes of
lightning which zig-zagged from side to side....
Around the rim of the great vortex small tornadoes were constantly
forming and breaking away. These looked like tails as they writhed
their way around the funnel. It was these that made the hissing sound.
I noticed the rotation of the great whirl was anticlockwise, but some
of the small twisters rotated clockwise.... The tornado was not
traveling at a great speed. I had plenty of time to get a good view of
the whole thing, inside and out."
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Winds of the Land 89 Spe qd, }
quilt fastened to the sky by hundreds of invisible pins between which
the quilt droops downward in loose, sharply curved folds. From out
of such a sky or from a sky of jumbled cloud, the tornado descends.
Few persons have tarried to observe an oncoming tornado closely. 7 pa
Among those who have, and who lived to relate what he saw, was helt th Kater
Will Keller, a farmer living near Greensburg, Kansas. Fxcept for the ( Arasentrs,
fact that tornadoes often occur singly rather than in twos or threes v
and that they sometimes do not contain lightning, his account is de-
scriptive of a typical tornado:
On the afternoon of June 22, 1928, between three and four o'clock,
I noticed an umbrella-shaped cloud in the west and southwest and from
its appearance suspected there was a tornado in it. The air had that
peculiar oppressiveness which nearly always precedes the coming of
a tornado.
I saw at once my suspicions were correct. Hanging from the green-
ish black base of the cloud were three tornadoes. One was perilously
near and apparently headed directly for my place. .
Two of the tornadoes were some distance aw ay and feces like great
ropes dangling from the parent cloud, but the one nearest was shaped
more like a funnel, with ragged clouds surrounding it. It appeared
larger than the others and occupied the central position, with great
cumulus clouds over it.
Steadily the cloud came on, the end gradually rising above the
ground. I probably stood there only a few seconds, but was so im-
pressed with the sight it seemed like a long time, At last the great
shaggy end of the funnel hung directly overhead. Everything was still
as death. There was a strong, gassy odor, and it seemed as though I
could not breathe, There was a screaming, hissing sound coming di-
rectly from the end of the funnel, | looked up, and to my astonishment
I saw right into the heart of the tornado. There was a circular opening
in the center of the funnel, about fifty to one hundred feet in diameter
and extending straight upward for a distance of at least half a mile, as
best I could judge under the circumstances. The walls of this opening
were rotating clouds and the whole was brilliantly lighted with con-
stant flashes of lightning which zig-zagged from side to side... .
Around the rim of the great vortex small tornadoes were constantly
forming and breaking away, These looked like tails as they writhed
their way around the funnel, It was these that made the hissing sound,
I noticed the rotation of the great whirl was anticlockwise, but some
of the small twisters rotated clockwise. ... The tornado was not
90 The Ocean of Air
traveling at a great speed. I had plenty of time to get a good view of
the whole thing, inside and out,
e —
The funnel-shaped tornado cloud moves forward steadily in its
upper part at a speed of from 5 to 60 m.p-h. But below, the cloud
weaves back and forth, a cone-shaped monster of destruction that
swings from side to side along a winding path. Sometimes the whirl-
ing cloud withdraws upward so that it touches the ground only along
a path a few yards wide. Sometimes it burrows downward to cut a
twisting sw: ath a thousand yards or more in width. Or else it may bob
along the ground, touching the earth just long enough to pulverize
a farmhouse, skipping across a barn twenty yards aw: , hitting a
chicken house ten yards beyond. Where the tornado crosses an open
field, it may rip the gras: from the ground, yank out fence posts, and
pluck out occasional trees, roots and all. Where it crosses a stream or
lake, it sucks up water. Where it crosses a snowfield, it suddenly
turns pure white.
The giant hurricane causes greater destruction; but acre for acre
and square yard for square yard, no natural agent of destruction can
match the tornado. The scene of its most awesome devastation is the
city, whose terrain, densely packed with houses and other buildings,
is sure to yield a terrible harvest wherever the tornado strikes, Statis-
tics for a few cases tell part of the story: 317 killed in the Natchez
tornado of 1840; $12 million damage and 306 dead in St. Louis in
1896; on May 26, 1917, ror dead in Mattoon, Illinois; almost 2,000
injured and 689 killed in the worst tornado on record in the United
States, the tristate tornado that hit several towns in Missouri, Illinois,
and Indiana on the 18th of March, 1925; and much more recently,
in 1959, the tornado that killed 21 and injured 300 in St. Louis. When
deaths are calculated on a square-mile basis, the power of the tornado
becomes even more evident. The path of the St. Louis tornado of
1896 covered less than two square miles. The death toll was almost
200 per square mile.
The aftermath of the tornado is a hodgepodge of broken houses
and houses without a blemish, of stacks of jagged debris and of areas
free even of minor rubble. Fire, earthquake, volcanoes, and flood all
decimate large, continuous areas. The tornado is so erratic in its effects
that if the areas of destruction are entered in black ink on a large map
representing a few square blocks of a city, the resulting pattern makes
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