Democratic Sentinel, Volume 9, Number 36, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 9 October 1885 — TORNADO WARNINGS. [ARTICLE]

TORNADO WARNINGS.

Trustworthy Reports to Be Sent to Localities Threatened by the Funnel Fiend. Lieutenant J. P. Finley’s Observations—The Per Cent of Verification Gratifying. [Washington dispatch.] The phenomena of tornadoes, to the scientfie study of which Lieut. John P. Finley, of the signal corps, has devoted about eight years, are now so well underslood as to warrant theebelief that trustworthy warnings may soon be sent out to Ihe inhabitants of localities which may be threatened with disastrous visitations. Daily predictions are in fact being made at present, having begun last year and continued during the tornado season, and resumed reoentiy upon the return of Lieut. Finley from an inspection tour in the West, The percentage of verification is already gratifying, though the predictions are as yet largely experimental, and are embodied in the daily published bulletins of the signal office oniy when the conditions favorable to the creation of tornadoes are very pronounced. In such cases “severe local siorms” are noted as probable. To a reporter Lieutenant Finley recently described the known phenomena of tornadoes and the ends toward which present researches are directed. Those storms have distinctly marked characteristics, and are by no means to bo confounded with hurricanes, “blizzards,” cyclones, or northeasters. Their tracks are never more than a few bundled yards wide, and their forces are generally exhausted by the time ihey have traveled a course of forty or fifty miles, though in this latter respect they are quite variable, some having been traced by their lines of devastation more than 180 miles. Their rotary motion, which is greatest toward the center, sometimes reuches the enormous rate of two thousand miles an hour, while their forward moveuient.always from southwest to northheast, ordinarily does not exceed forty or fifty miles. They are usually unaccompanied by electrical disturbances, and are believed to bo uninfluenced by electrical conditions, though violent thunderstorms sometimes follow them a few miles axvay. There is a distinct and curious relationship between (he tornado and the general storm center, which is always apparent in their uniform relative positions; the tornado always occurring southeastwardly from the center of the low barometic pressure, and at a distance from one to six hundred miles. The shape of the general storm center, the direction in which its longest diameter lies, and the appearance of the upper and lower clouds enter as minor elements in the problem out of which the weather experts hope to work a complete system of tornado warnings. The visits of the tornado nre commonly between the hours of 2 and 6 o’clock in the afternoon. Its home is an area which includes the whole of lowa, all of Missouri, except the southeastern corner, the northwestern comer of Arkansas, the norlheastern part of Indian Territory, Eastern Kansas, Eastern Nebraska, Southern Minnesota, Southern Wisconsin, and Western Illinois. Here its season extends from April to August, inclusive. It is a frequent visitor to two or three regions. One is a strip along the gulf aud South Atlantic, which takes in the central portions of Alabama, Georgia, and South Carolina, with termini in Mississippi and North Carolina, over which its devastations are confined to the months of January, February, and Maroh. The other includes a portion of southern and central Ohio, a large part of Pennsylvania, a small area in Maryland, a strip across New York, and a corner each of Massachusetts and Connecticut, where it is seasonable only during the months of August and September. Lieut. Finley further said, while a host of interesting scientific questions respecting the origin of tornadoes, the laws which govern them, and their relationship to other meteorological phenomena remain to be answered, the more practical questions as to when and where they are likely to appear seem to be advancing rapidly toward solution. The interests which are subject to disaster from tornadoes are alive to the importance of the work in progress. Intending purchasers of farms apply to the Signal Cilice for information respecting the liability of their selected locality to disaster. To such are sent the records of the past as far as they are known. Whenever Lieut. Finley travels in pursuit of his studies farmers and villagers press for information. To these he says that nothing raised by the hand of man above the surface of the earth can withstand the shock of the tornado. He advises them to seek their dugouts upon the appearance of the portentious sigi s of disaster, and there await the passage of the stoim. For their property he advises insurance, so that the losses of the individual may be shared by his more fortunate neighbors. The insurance companies which last year “wrote” $40,000,0110 in tornado policies are eagerly awaiting the completion of a map now in the process of making which will, it is expected, greatly narrow the so-called tornado regions, and perhaps show that large portions of them have never experienced a destructive storm. Upon this map Lieutenant Finley proposes to show from the complete records of several years and dates the average number of tornadoes for each locality per annum.