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Why was the girl about to be arrested? For chasing storms? For being cute and silly?
Also, I've always heard interesting stories about tornadoes, how they'll destroy a whole house but leave one room untouched without so much as knocking a picture off the wall, drive pieces of straw through fence posts and house siding like nails, pick up a cow and fly it a mile away and set it down unharmed, etc. How much of this kind of stuff is true? Do you know, offhand, of any links to information about it?
Going to watch/look at the rest of these now, thanks!
I do not know why she was arrested, the link did not specify. I assume they were storm chasing - perhaps they were chasing in an area where police have had troubles with irresponsible chasers going too fast, driving through fields to get to othe roads or closer to storms, etc. Or maybe they were irresponsible themselves. Or maybe it had nothing to do with chasing, I dunno.
There are a lot of reasons a tornado might destroy most of a house but leave one part standing. It could hit the outer walls and then lift suddenly, it could be moving fairly quickly, the area standing might only be grazed by the tornado while the rest of the house was deeper in the winds.
Also, tornadoes, especially large violent ones, frequently have multiple vortexes. So you can have very localized destruction that is far more intense than what is across the road. Slow-moving tornadoes are more likely to totally destroy a house than faster moving storms, and that sometimes has a lot to do with how much damage is done.
As for straw going through boards or fence posts, it is widely believed that the winds bend the wood or other material until a grain opens up or it cracks, and the piece of straw is on it's way through this hole when the grain closes. It was once thought the winds actually drove the straw into the wood, but that is highly unlikely.
As for cows or other things being picked up and sat down unharmed.. anything can happen. One of the (many) reasons tornadoes are so incredibly destructive is because of the debris being carried by the wind. Structures are often hit hardest in areas where other damage has occured because there is already debris in the funnel and as the tornado moves over the structure it is being hit by both wind and debris. If the tornado is out in the open it might pick up an animal and carry it for a while in a funnel that has no debris in it other than what it can pickup in the field and then if the cow gets lucky it might be put back down by the tornado relatively gently. Of course the odds are better that it will be thrown violently by the tornado and killed.
photo by splunge
photo by TheophileEscargot
photo by Kronos_to_Earth
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