For some reason I’ve been thinking about fluid dynamics. Maybe it’s that, after yet another long northern winter, our 11,842 lakes here in Minnesota are finally turning back to fluid. Or the prospect of soon getting out on the St. Croix River in my little canoe—that is if we’re spared the river’s usual spring flooding.
Another reason might be that it will soon be prime tornado season here. (From May through July Minnesota averages 41 twisters each year.) Wait…fluid dynamics and tornadoes?
I could, and probably should, write a post just about all the ways air acts like water. Suffice it to say for now that how water drains from a sink or bathtub, how it swirls—counterclockwise in the Northern Hemisphere—is exactly the way air acts during nearly all tornadoes. And yes, just like water, most tornadoes spin clockwise in the Southern Hemisphere.
A DRAINING EXPERIENCE
It’s June 14, 1981—a Sunday—a bit before 4 PM. I’m upstairs in my little house on 16th Avenue South, Minneapolis, chipping away 60 years of paint that's lost its grip on a window sill. Though it’s far from taxing work, I’m sweating.
The air outside, and even more so inside—on the second floor of a non-air-conditioned house—is thick with humidity. I’m grateful for the occasional waft of breeze that finds me.
The work is pleasant. I’m accomplishing something, listening to some nice Hall & Oates on the stereo, and Bess, my sweet black lab, is lying on the rug beside me, panting.
At one point, I notice it’s getting kind of dark outside, and now those breezes are holding their breath. You can almost smell the rain coming. Oh well, I figure, I’ll work until I feel it on my hands.
A
few minutes later the gunmetal sky and everything I can see out the
window has taken on an eerie greenish cast. I realize this can’t be good.
I don’t remember hearing the civil defense sirens going off. Just that soon it’s raining, then hailing. Then the air starts churning…and that’s when I hear it.
I picture the massive, vacuum-cleaning
vortex swirling overhead.
SO MUCH DUST
Nearly everyone who’s lived through a tor-
nado says they heard an unearthly rumbling heading toward them. Like a freight train. That’s exactly what I hear. Bess hears it too and gets really squirrelly.
I’d been fascinated with tornadoes ever since I was a boy and always wished I could see one. I admired those daredevils who tear along back roads in Kansas, Oklahoma and the Texas Panhandle to document them. And here’s my moment; I’m about to be in the middle of one. But I can tell you, what I’m experiencing is not a thrill.
![]() |
IMAGE: The Weather Channel |
I imagine the massive, vacuum-cleaning vortex swirling overhead. And here’s this flimsy little house, these two minute creatures helpless in its path. If it’s an F4 or F5, we’re like so much dust.
I take the cues and start down to the basement. First I shut the window, and I feel my ears pop as if something just sucked all the air out of the house. In the kitchen I grab some candles and my portable radio and by the time we reach the cellar it’s like we’re under a trestle and the train is thundering right over us.
The entire roof of the three-story apartment
building next door gets lifted off and dropped
across my back yard and garage.
FOREST FOR THE TREES
We’re not in the basement for more than a few minutes when the ominous roar ebbs. And we still have a roof over our heads! I head cautiously up the stairs and, thank God, everything appears intact.
It’s when I go outside that I see the destruction. Eighty-foot, half-century-old trees ripped from the ground. Cars piled on one another. Large sheets of drywall and other building materials strewn in the street. (I later find out they’re from the Sears yard a mile away.) And the entire roof of the three-story apartment building next door lifted off and dropped across my back yard and garage.
![]() |
IMAGE: teapots happen |
- The so-called Har Mar tornado, rated an F-3 with winds reaching nearly 200 miles per hour, was on the ground for 26 minutes.
- The human toll: two fatalities, 6 serious injuries, more than 80 minor injuries. (Experts considered it miraculous that these numbers weren't much higher.)
- Other impact: $47 million in property damage; 1,300 homes, 50 businesses and 400-plus vehicles damaged or destroyed; 3,500 trees killed; some 30,000 customers without power.*
So I’ve finally experienced my tornado, up close and personal. I suppose that affords me certain bragging rights. But, ironically—and disappointingly—I’ve yet to see one. Maybe this tornado season I’ll get that chance (from a safe distance this time).
~ • ~ • ~
TIP #30 ON HOW TO BE IN THE MOMENT:
Blow toward a candle from across the room.
Air's like this magical, invisible liquid. It ebbs and flows, pours in to fill voids, lifts huge things...like roofs and wings.
Like a wave, your blown breath rolls across the room. Will there be enough left of it to make lap candle’s tongue of flame?
FROM UNDER THE WILD GINGER – BY JEFFREY WILLIUS
* Storm data thanks to CBS News, WCCO and Minnesota Public Radio, and
Hennepin County Emergency Management.