Billy Roberts, age 12, of Cilmer, Texas, for his question;

That makes a tornado?

This year, the March weather roared like a lion from start to finish and rampaged right into April. Late masses of polar air from the north broke right through our spring defenses. The cold front that devastated the north central states with blizzards bent south to breed a family of disastrous tornados. Andy’s friendly weatherman, says he, would rather have, an earthquake than a tornado any day,

The cruel little twister is the fiercest storm ever hatched by the weather, time cannot tell just where it will strike the ground and we are not sure whys it forms. We do know how its powerful fury works and we do know the weather conditions likely to produce it. So the weatherman can warn when tornados can and might happen.

Tornados tend to build up along the front of a massive cyclonic storm. Three different air masses have met and clashed. Dry polar air had raided down from the north, Warm, moist air from the Gulf of Mexico had advanced and met it. A mass of cool, slightly moist air had moved in from the Pacific to join the conflict.

The battle line of air masses moves across our south and central states from the west or southwest. Ahead of it, small skirmishes build up where a layer of cold dry air overruns a lower layer of warm damp air. Those weather skirmishes generate, tornados. Trailing funnels of dark clouds dip and sway. Some reach the ground end plow a path of havoc.

The center of the funnel is a column of rising air so light that it is almost a vacuum. The vacuum power works to pull winds and everything else towards it, The spin of the earth gives a twist to the fast, inflowing winds and sets them spiraling. At the heart of the funnel, the winds rush upwards and create a central pocket almost empty of air.

"The spiraling winds, pulling everything to the heart of the twister, may reach 400 miles per hour. This is nearly three times the speed and strength of the worst hurricane. A big twister may tear up the ground in a 50 mile path before spending its fury.

Trees are uprooted and cars tossed around like toys. Buildings blow inside  out. This happens because the center of the tornado is the most powerful vacuum in the world. The air inside buildings rushes out to fill the vacancy in the twister.  It rushes with such force that roofs arc pulled. skyward and walls dragged outwards ‑ the building explodes. The best place for people caught in this fury is inside a storm cellar with the door shut tight,,

More than a hundred cruel tornados strike the states east of the Rockies every year. They build up from May to November and are most numerous in the spring and early summer. This year, we all grieved to hear of tornado disaster worse; than usual. Perhaps we can offer one small note of cheer to those who were struck, Another tornado is not likely to strike in the same spot again