The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1920-05-04
TOPEKA STATE JOURNAL
Information Bureau
FREDERIC j. HAsKIN. Director.
Washington, D. G.
ABOUT STORMS.

Washington, D. c., May This
spring has been unusually productive
of that peculiar. American weather
phenomenon known scientifically as
the tornado and more popularity called
a cyclone.
which has recently filled the front
pages of newspapers have both been
characterized by tornadoes, and in
both cases it was the tornadoes that
did the most of the damage. One of
these storms, or storm groups, raw
aged the middle west in the vicinity of
Chicago and the other struck the CEN
trail south in Alabama and Tennessee.
In each case the weather bureau was
able to warn the people that a storm
was coming, but it could not predict
that tornadoes would accompany
them. 1t is this which makes the tor
nado an especially deadly thing. Its
origin cannot be predicted. and after
it starts it moves too rapidly for warn
ing to be sent ahead.
The tornado always forms at the
cloud level, very suddenly, descends
to the earth, dashes across the coun-
try chewing up everything in its path,
which may be no more than a city
block in width, and then disappears.
1t is marauder which gives no warn
ing and works with lightning speed.
There is no weather phenomenon
deadly power and malignant intent,
and none which causes more terror.
The term cyclone, which IS com
monty applied to these winds, is alto
gether wrong. A cyclone is properly a
wind caused by the movement of air
in a counter clockwise direction about
center of low pressure. Such
cyclones are constantly moving across
the country. They may not cause
winds of any violence. and a cyclone,
or cyclonic movement, may be half as
wide as the continent, as you can easily
see by looking at the diagram of one
of them on the daily weather map sent
out by the weather bureau. A cyclonic
movement usually brings either wind
or rain or snow, but not necessarily
anything worthy of the name of a
storm. 1t may bring merely a dull,
muggy spell, due to the warm, moist
air of which it is composed. 1t is
usually. tho not always, followed by
an aEti-cyclone, which is similar air
movement. except that it moves in the
opposite direction-that is, clockwise
and carries cold, heavy air with it.
This anti-cyclone brings the cool west
winds of the summer and fall, and is
generally characterized by clear and
bracing weather. This alteration of
cyclone and anti-cyclone causes the
characteristic variations of the weather
turnout the eastern United States. To
understand these movements is to
understand the weather about as well
as a laymen can. 1t is chiefly by
watching these great main movements
of the air that the weather bureau
predicts what is going to happen. If it
sees cyclone approaching it knows
that when it reaches a certain point
there will probably be rain or a high
wind there. 1t can predict the char
acter of the weather pretty we'll by its
reports as to what the cyclone is doing
in other parts of the country. But
sometimes the cyclone slightly changes
its path, or slows up and arrives some
where twelve or twenty-four hours be-
mind time. In that case the weather
prophecy for given locality is wrong.
The layman leaps to the conclusion
that the weather forecaster does not
know his business But as a matter of
fact the forecaster predicts correctly
most of the time
The tornado is a sort of by-product
or the cyclone, and one which is pro-
duced only at long and very irregular
intervals It usually originates on the
southern side of a cyclone and near
the center. For instance one of. the
regular great cyclones may be moving
across the middle west, as one does
every week or SO. 1t may produce
moderate winds, thunderstorns and
rain. But somewhere near its center
two air currents strike each other go
ing in opposite directions. They tangle
up and go round and round each
other This is not a scientific state
ment of the case. but a fair statement
of it in unscientific language
The whirl made by these two winds