Worcester daily spy. [volume] (Worcester [Mass.]) 1850-1888, 1871-07-21
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The present season has been remarkable IN
this country for the number and severity of its
storms. Massachusetts had its share OF them
rather early in the season, with the tornado
which swept through Paxton and Holden, and
later IN the same day touched the earth again
near the middle of Essex county, having passed
harmlessly over the whole breadth of Middlesex
and half of Worcester and Essex, like cannon
ball on the ricochet. Its violence, though by
no means unprecedented, is rarely equalled in
| this latitude. Earlier even than this there had
been a tornado in Illinois, of very narrow track,
but displaying some unusual phenomena. Then
a whirlwind Of great destructiyeness was report
ed from another part of Illinois; few days after
southern Kansas suffered from a similar vista
ton causing immense destruction of property
for a region so sparsely settled; and after very
short interval a storm not less violent did enor-
nous mischief in southern Iowa. In all these
cases the violent wind was the destructive
agent, but limited district in the
south of Iowa also suffered from a hail storm,
so severe that a report of it says that if it had
literally trained pitchforks' the damage would
hardly have been greater. Glass of course was
biuhtuy NhOlS pbhS bSAh7 iNit III tiN
town of Red Oak tin roofs were punched full
of holes, shingles were lett in splinters poultry
and pigs were killed. Crops of wheat and corn
were utterly ruined, so that the farmers have
sowed their ground again with buckwheat or
turnips. Some of the haistones are said to
have weighed over a pound each, and great
many more than half pound each. 1t is not
nnceeSarv ~ rive irDlcit credenrp IN this story.
but they have no doubt had severe hailstOrm
in Red Oak. The latest tornadoes reported oc-
Cured in New York and Pennsylvania last
Sunday. In New York a bell tower was blown
down and some lives were lost In Pennsyl-
vania the storm behaved much like that in our
neighborhood, overturning barns in two or
three instances, carrying houses into the air to
be dashed in fragments to the earth, tearing up
trees by the roots and performing other freaks
of this kind. 1t is related also that for the
whole width of its path the tornado stripped
the earth OF all vegetation, and in some places
even tore up the earth to the depth of several
inches.
The occurrence of so many of these violent
storms within the limit of observation so con-
slant and systematic as those taken under the
direction of the war department, ought to en-
able General Myers to explain their causes and
the manner of their development and progress
more fully than it has yet been done. He an
nounced some time ago, in one of his daily bull
etins, that the conditions were favorable for
tornadoes. The public would be glad to under
stand these conditions more fully. 1t is known
in general way that these, like other atmos-
pheric disturbances, are caused by variations of
temperature, modife1 more or less by electric in
fuence, but even the most learned meteorOlogists
are not agreed upon the manner in which these
causes operate, and the effects are too violent
and confined within too narrow areas TO seem
the legitimate results of any causes that we see
in operation. We know, for instance, that if the
air in one locality is hotter than elsewhere, it ex
pands and rises, and the surrounding air flows
in to fill the partial vacuum thus created. The
origin of winds is explained in this way, and for
the ordinary movements of the atmosphere this
explanation is satisfactory; but, few persons can
accept it as accounting for the short, sharp
gusts which sweep with irresistible force over a
track only few rods wide, leaving the air be-
yond this narrow belt almost entirely undis.
turbed.