Demosophia

Tornado Swarms and the APSA Convention

When Hurricane Ivan came through the Northern Virginia/Washington, DC area awhile ago it spawned a nerve-wracking series of tornados. I'd hear the NOAA weather radio issue a tornado warning with great urgency, and immediately head for the basement. The warning would subside and I'd then hear another warning in about 10 minutes. This went on for an entire afternoon, and eventually I began to get a bit jaded. I just stopped going to the basement. Apparently Ivan set some records for tornados, but what's different about Katrina, at least for the Mid-Atlantic area, is that the current storm is expected to pass by west of the Shenandoah. By and large that means that we'll get fewer tornados even though the mix of dry and moist air at different elevations tends to produce twisters. My impression of tornados when I went through this with Ivan was that they're a bit like a pest infestation: rats or cockroaches. They feed off of pressure differentials, and I'm not disappointed at all that Katrina is expected to spawn fewer tornados than Ivan, especially since the APSA convention will be happening concurrently.