Evening times-Republican. [volume] (Marshalltown, Iowa) 1890-1923, 1906-05-04
CYCLONES AND ToRNADoEs.

A destructive tornado In Texas is
the harbinger Of a season that Is about
to arrive in the more northern states.
The season of cyclones aud tornadoes
Is due IN these middle western states
any time after the fifteenth of May.
Then we may expect one t., burst upon
some unsuspecting community with
havoc and destruction at any time,
for seldom does a season pass that
some town somewhere in the United
States is not struck.
used with a great deal of confusion by
the average person. or course it may
not be of material concern to the per-
son struck by either storm, which kind
struck him, but in discussing the phe-
nomena the rest of us should know
the difference. The twister, or funnel
shaped cloud which sweeps patch
& OF ruin from half a mile to a mile wide
Z is not cyclone as commonly called,
\
twister, but being a thousand miles
wide or more it appears as a straight
wind at any given point. and generally
blows for days at a time.
The broad aerial stream that is
generally flowing from west to east
over the United States apparently car
ries cyclones and anti-cyclones along
with 1t very much as the brook or
river carries along its whirlpools. 1t is
with their opposite kinds of weather
and wind that brings us our frequent
changes from rainy to clear, warm to
cold, and south wind to north wind.
The word cyclone belongs to the
kvery large whirls in the atmosphere.
There are other smaller atmospheric
whirls that have special names; these
are the hurricane, typhoon, tornado,
and waterspout. The word cyclone was
first used about the year 1910 as
name for very large whirling storms,
sometimes as much as five hundred
miles across, that occur in the Bay of
Bengal and the Indian ocean. Storms
like these also occur in the West In
|dies-south and southeast Of The Unit
ed States--where they were named
hurricanes by the Caribbean Indians
who Inhabited the islands Of the West
Indies when they We're discovered by
Europeans. and the name was adopt
| ed by early Spanish and Portuguese
|navigators and has been used ever
since. Storms of the same kind occur
lin the Philippines and on the Chinese
coast, where they have been called
|typhoons from ancient times.
The name cyclone was invented to
describe the whirling character of
These large whirlwinds that Eglishmen
found in India. 1t was brought home
to England by them, and the large
whirling masses of air that are carried
along from west to east We're called
cyclones, and now the word cyclone
belongs properly to large whirlwinds
two or three thousand miles in diam
eter.
The word tornado is a Spanish word
meaning "twister" and is applied to
the dangerous whirlwinds that tear
down houses and kill people. They are
very small compared with the hurri-
cane and cyclone. being generally less
khan half mile in diameter and are
rarely carried more than forty or fifty
miles, and do not last altogether more
khan an hour or so before they die
AWAY and disappear. They take only
h few seconds to pass over any given
point. Cyclones and hurricanes travel
Tor many days and go thousands of
miles. and take from day to three or
Tour days to pass over a place.
However, while it is matter Of in