Tornado: In the Eye of the Storm

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The sky was a vicious shade of greenish grey, the wind was unbelievably loud, and my mother and the other American woman did what one does when a tornado is possibly about to uproot your home. That is, they sought shelter in the basement of the house. The Aussie and the Kiwi on the other hand, ran to the front porch to watch this incredible force of nature, all while their loves screamed at them to seek shelter. It’s known to some as the dreaded pinhole because it tells meteorologists that there’s likely a significant hurricane associated with the storm’s small eye. Former Tornado Navigator John Nichol tells the incredible story of the RAF Tornado force during the First Gulf War in 1991; the excitement and the danger, the fear and the losses. It is an extraordinary account of courage and fortitude.

We were doing about 620 miles-per-hour, 200 feet above the desert, in total darkness. Everything was running on rails as we approached the target. Then all hell broke loose. I remember the missile being fired at us; I broke left and shouted, “Chaff!” The 4:50 From Paddington . I read this for the #readmorechristie book challenge and #emmasbookishcorner challenge. The prompt for #emmasbookishcorner challenge was to read a book by Agatha Christie, and for #readmorechristie was to read one of her books featuring a female adventurer. I thought this one was perfect as you could consider there to be THREE female adventures in this book. The first is Mrs. McGillicuddy who witnessed the murder and tried to do something about it. The second is Jane Marple who heard about the murder from her friend, Mrs. McGillicuddy. And the third is Lucy Eyelesbarrow who Jane Marple enlists to help her find the body and solve the murder. I read this once (or twice) before and though I was fairly certain I remembered what happened it was still an enjoyable read. Definitely at least a 4 out of 5 star read.Some tornadoes have only one main funnel cloud. Others have multiple small funnels that rotate around each other. There are even tornadoes that don’t have a funnel cloud at all. As long as winds are rotating in a tight circle all the way from the storm cloud down to the ground, it’s a tornado, even if atmospheric conditions haven’t condensed water vapor in the air into a visible funnel. Once inside the swirling cloud, Keller said that everything was "as still as death." He reported smelling a strong gassy smell and had trouble breathing. When he looked up, he saw the circular opening directly overhead, and estimated it to be roughly 50 to 100 feet in diameter and about a half a mile high. The rotating cloud walls were made clearly visible by constant bursts of lightning that "zigzagged from side to side." He also noticed a lot of smaller tornadoes forming and breaking free, making a loud hissing noise. The tornado then passed, skipping over his house and smashing the home of his neighbor. I’m overwhelmed with trying to do so much and not making much progress and yet as the tornado rips through my life, I find myself staring unflinchingly into its eye. There’s this quiet calm that I can sense. The video of "Eye of the Storm" tells the story of an anonymous airship pilot, whom we see in a very dark, simplified form deciding in his melancholy to steer his airship into a massive (and possible ether-driven) storm. Throughout the video we see him preparing his craft, setting it on "autopilot", and saying goodbye to his one companion- a dragon.

Panic sets in as the staff sense the impending end of their eccentric world. Mrs Hunter confesses her profound disappointment at failing to recreate the state of humility and grace she experienced when caught in the eye of a cyclone fifteen years earlier. In a Sydney suburb, two nurses, a housekeeper and a solicitor attend to Elizabeth Hunter as her expatriate son and daughter convene at her deathbed. In dying, as in living, Mrs. Hunter remains a formidable force on those around her. It is via Mrs Hunter’s authority over living that her household and children vicariously face death and struggle to give consequence to life. Generally speaking, the smaller the eye of the hurricane, the faster it spins. Think of a dancer spinning on the dance floor. A dancer will spin slower when their arms and hands are extended out. When the dancer pulls their arms and hands closer to their body, the dancer spins faster. It’s known as the conservation of angular momentum, and the same physics apply to hurricanes. A smaller eye typically means stronger winds. Hurricanes with pinhole eyes are most common in the Caribbean Sea or the Gulf of Mexico.These questions could spark a whole unit of work. I am sure your children will come up with a range of different ideas. I try to reach my dad through the veil to ask his advice, but he is silent. Samhain is still a ways off after all. But he’s always with me in my memories of him. In his stories. His stories tell me that I can get through this storm. That I can look at it with wonder and awe and see the quiet center. You can see why I barely read anything this month but as I’d like to continue with my end of month reading updates here is what I did read in September: