Science: Tornado from Within

Two years ago Will Keller, farmer of Greensburg, Kan. saw three tornadoes swirling toward him. Putting his family safely away into a cyclone cellar he stood at the cellar door, watched. Last week, according to Science Service despatches, the report of his experiences was sent to the Weather Bureau at Washington. Will Keller’s story:

“Steadily the tornado came on, the end gradually rising above the ground. . . .

“At last the great shaggy end of the funnel hung directly overhead. Everything was as still as death. There was a strong gassy odor and it seemed that I could not breathe. A screaming, hissing sound came directly from the end of the funnel.

“I looked up and to my astonishment I saw right up into the heart of the tornado. There was a circular opening in the centre of the funnel, about 50 or 100 feet in diameter, and extending straight upward for a distance of at least one-half mile, as .best I could judge under the circumstances.

“The walls of this opening were of rotating clouds and the whole was made brilliantly visible by constant flashes of lightning, which zigzagged from side to side. Had it not been for the lightning I could not have seen the opening, not any distance up into it, anyway.

“Around the lower rim of the great vortex small tornadoes were constantly forming and breaking away. These looked like tails as they writhed their way around the end of the funnel. It was these that made the hissing noise.

“I noticed that the direction of rotation of the great whirl was anticlockwise, but the small twisters rotated both ways, some one way and some another.”