Dear Friammers,
Its almost May, the season in which I provide posts on tornadoes and the rest of you dopeslap me for my naïve interest in them. A true sign of spring, this message is. I offer for your amusement the following: http://www.americanwx.com/bb/index.php/topic/43293-tornado-in-michoacan-mexi co/ It contains two videos of an urban tornado in Mexico, the second of which (marked NASA) is by far the longest, steadiest portrait of a tornado I have ever seen. There are many mysterious aspects of this storm --- the high base, the innocent sky, the absence of any lightning, or even any precipitation in the region all seem strange. I considered that it was a hoax of some sort, but there is yet a third video of this same storm, taken from another angle, and in this case, the video takers have to take shelter from falling stuff. Another feature of this storm that makes it exciting is that it picks up long strands of agricultural debris (plastic row covers, perhaps?) which have the effect of visualizing the circulation of the storm outside the dustcolumn that we normally think of as the tornado. One of the thing that makes tornadoes seem so implausible is that the column itself often seems quite strand-like and delicate. Please let me know what you think. N Nicholas S. Thompson Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology Clark University http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/
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