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Wind Can Pack a Punch

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Tornadoes are those swirling funnel shaped clouds that hang from the dark cloud mass that sometimes accompanies thunderstorms.  Tornadoes are often called ‘twisters.'  The twisting pattern of the wind concentrates enormous power for an hour or so in very little space.  Tornadoes can rip trees out by the roots, and sweep buildings and people into the air - often depositing them far away unharmed!  A tornado can demolish one house, while a house next door is unscathed.

Measuring the wind speed in the middle of a tornado is difficult because the equipment never survives the onslaught.  But the wind is estimated to reach around four hundred kilometres an hour.

Tornadoes are generally caused when a layer of high cold air flowing in one direction, meets moist warmer air flowing in the opposite direction.  As the warmer air rises moisture condenses into rain, releasing heat.  The warm dry air is sucked up in a spiral.  Colder air at the top is drawn down through the centre of the storm and is warmed up, causing it again to rise rapidly, adding impetus to the violent updrafts.  The spinning air gradually tightens into a funnel which sucks up all in it's path.  Tornadoes usually spin anticlockwise in the Northern hemisphere and clockwise in the Southern hemisphere.  The air pressure in the funnel is so low that it can cause a building to literally explode when it hits it.

So next time you see a funnel from a cloud, keep clear.  It could take you for quite a ride.

MOVING BEYOND MATTER
 by William G. Hobbs

Mark Twain said, "A great, great deal has been said about the weather, but very little has ever been done."  And when it comes to tornadoes there doesn’t seem to be much that can be done.

Tornadoes are unpredictable.  They’re destructive.  And yet gentle; as Dr. Humphreys pointed out, people and animals have been picked up and carried by these winds and set down unharmed great distances away.  

All this thinking about destructive weather reminded me of something of which most aren’t even aware.  And it’s that we describe the actions of weather in military terms.  Weather patterns move in fronts like opposing armies.  Weather maps are most similar to military strategy maps.  The reason, of course, is that the modern study of weather and the need to predict it grew out of the planning of military campaigns.  Night missions work best with cloud cover.  Guns work better when it isn’t raining.  Some one once said something to the effect that, the evils of humanity are the most historically documented facts and the most emphatically denied.  That is to say, despite all the proof that we do bad things, we still like to believe that we are essentially good.  Even forecasting the weather tells us that we sometimes learn and develop practical things only if it helps us kill each other.

Now, if a tornado destroyed your house, your insurance company would label it "an act of God."  We’ve discussed what forecasting the weather says about us.  Consider what tornadoes may tell us about God.

Tornadoes are powerful forces, uncontrollable by any human means yet devised, nonnegotiable, and at times gentle in all their power.

Similarly, the Bible tells us that God is all-powerful, worthy of awe and even fear; unswayed by human bribes, that is just, unchangeable, and not just loving, but love personified.