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Show GRAPPLING WITH THE TORNADO. Lieut. Flnley Talks of the Haunts and Habits of Those Hell-Tearing Winds Science Can Predict Pre-dict Them, but What Can Prevent Them? Washington, October 4. The phenomena of tornadoes, to the scientific study of which Lieutenant John P. Finley, of the Signal Corps, has devoted about eight years, are now so well understood as to warrant a belief be-lief that trustworthy warnings may soon be sent out to the inhabitants of the localities which may be threatened with disastrous visitation. Daily precautions are, in fact, being made at present, having been begun last year and continued during the tornado season, and resumed recently upon the return of Lieutenant Finley from an inspection inspec-tion tour in the West, The percentage of verification is already, gratifying, though PBEDICTIONS ABE AS YET LABGELY EXPERIMENTAL, EXPERI-MENTAL, And are embodied in daily published bulletins bulle-tins of the Signal office only when conditions favorable to the creations of tornadoes are ve-:y pronounced. In such cases "severe local storms" are noted as probable. To a reporter of the Associated Press Lieutenant Lieu-tenant Finley reoently described the known phenomenal tornadoes, and the end3 toward which present researches are directed. These storms have distinctly marked characteristics, characteris-tics, and are by no means to be confounded with hurricanes, blizzards, cyclones or northeasters. north-easters. Their tracks are never more than A FEW HUNDBED YABDS WIDE, And their forces are generally exhausted by the time they have traveled a course of forty or fifty miles, though in this latter respect re-spect they are quite variable, some having been traced by their lines of devastation more than 180 miles. Their rotary motion, which is greatest towards the centre, sometimes some-times reaches the enormous rate of 2,000 miles an hour, while their forward movement, move-ment, always from the southwest to northeast, north-east, ordinarily does not exceed forty or fifty miles. They are usually unaccompanied by electrical disturbances, and are believed be-lieved to be uninfluenced by electrical elec-trical conditions, though violent thunder storms sometimes follow them a few miles away. There is a distinct and curious relationship rela-tionship between the tornado and general storm centre, which is always apparent in their uniform relative positions, tornadoes always occuring southeastward from the centre, at a low barometeric pressure, and at a distance of from one to G00 miles; the shape of the general storm centre direction, in which its longest diameter lies, and the appearance of the upper and lower clouds center as minor elements into the problem, out of which weather experts hope to work a complete system of tornado warnings. Visits of TOBNADOES ABE COMMONLY BETWEEN THE HOUBS OF TWO AND SIX O'CLOCK In the afternoon. Their home is in an araa which includes the whole of Iowa, all Missouri, Mis-souri, except the southwestern corner, the northwestern corner of Arkansas, the northeastern north-eastern part of Indian Territory, Eastern Kansas, Eastern Nebraska, Southern Minnesota, Min-nesota, Southern Wisconsin and Western Illinois. Here its seasons extends from April to August inclusive. It is a frequent visitor in two or.three regions;one strip along the Gulf and South Atlantic, which take3 in the central portion of Alabama, Georgia and South Carolina, with termini in Mississippi Missis-sippi and North Carolina, over which its devastation de-vastation are confined to the months of January, Jan-uary, February and March; the other includes in-cludes a portion of Southern and Central Ohio, a large part of Pennsylvania, a small area in Maryland; a strip across New York and the corner each of Massachusetts and Connecticut, where its seasons are only during dur-ing the months of August and September. Lieutenant Finley farther said that while a host of interesting scientific questions respecting re-specting THE OBIGES OF TOBNADOES And the laws which govern them and their relationship to other meteorological phenomena pheno-mena remain to be answered, the more practical questions as to when and where they are likely to appear seem to be advancing advanc-ing rapidly toward solution. The interests which are subject to disaster from tornadoes are alive to the importance of the work in progress. Intending buyers of farms apply to the Signal office for information respecting respect-ing the liability of their selected locality to disaster. To finch are sent records of the past as far as they are known. Whenever Lieutenant Finley travels in pursuit of his studies, farmers and villagers press for information. in-formation. To these he says that nothing raised by the hand of man above the surface of the earth can withstand the shock of a tornado. He advises them to seek their dugouts dug-outs upon the appearance of portentious signs of disaster, and there await the passage pas-sage of the storm. For their property he advises insurance, so that losses of the individual in-dividual may be shared by his more fortunate fortun-ate neighbors. The insurance companies which last year wrote FOBTY MILLIONS ON TORNADO POLICIES Are eagerly awaiting the completion of a map now in process of making which will, it is expected, greatly narrow the so-called tornado tor-nado regions and perhaps show that large portions of them have nevor experienced the destructive storm. Upon this map Lieutenant Lieuten-ant Finley proposes to show, from the complete com-plete records of several years and data as far as obtained for many previous years, the average number of tornadoes for each locality per annum. |