Last June 11 Tim Samaras and two colleagues did the near impossible—they chased down a tornado and placed a probe with video cameras directly in its path. Beginning at precisely 2:23 p.m. the team caught images that have—in a breakthrough—made it possible to calculate wind speeds close to the ground, where tornadoes rip through human lives. It reminded me of a story my dad told me while I was growing up. He grew up in Australia but moved to the USA for university, fell in love with my mother, and stayed. They were living in Kansas City at the time and there was a tornado warning. My parents shared a house with another couple, a man from New Zealand and an American woman from the Midwest like my mother. The video of "Eye of the Storm" tells the story of an anonymous airship pilot, whom we see in a very dark, simplified form deciding in his melancholy to steer his airship into a massive (and possible ether-driven) storm. Throughout the video we see him preparing his craft, setting it on "autopilot", and saying goodbye to his one companion- a dragon. Yes, if one takes the common meaning of the term "eye of the storm" to be the area of relatively low wind speed near the center of the vortex, most tornadoes can be said to have eyes. Cyclostrophic balance describes a steady-state, inviscid flow with neglected Coriolis force: Eye of the Storm, a 2000 exhibition and book featuring the US Civil War drawings of Robert Knox Sneden

Generally speaking, the smaller the eye of the hurricane, the faster it spins. Think of a dancer spinning on the dance floor. A dancer will spin slower when their arms and hands are extended out. When the dancer pulls their arms and hands closer to their body, the dancer spins faster. It’s known as the conservation of angular momentum, and the same physics apply to hurricanes. A smaller eye typically means stronger winds. Hurricanes with pinhole eyes are most common in the Caribbean Sea or the Gulf of Mexico. The Eye of the Storm (1970 film), an American documentary by William Peters about Jane Elliott's classroom exercise "Blue eyes-Brown eyes" Right now, I feel like I am in the middle of a tornado. There’s been nonstop craziness and misfortune in my life since early summer. Loved ones ill, loved ones dead or dying, my own illness, trying to homeschool my child whilst also trying to run three different businesses whilst also trying to pursue my vocation (writing). Once inside the swirling cloud, Keller said that everything was "as still as death." He reported smelling a strong gassy smell and had trouble breathing. When he looked up, he saw the circular opening directly overhead, and estimated it to be roughly 50 to 100 feet in diameter and about a half a mile high. The rotating cloud walls were made clearly visible by constant bursts of lightning that "zigzagged from side to side." He also noticed a lot of smaller tornadoes forming and breaking free, making a loud hissing noise. The tornado then passed, skipping over his house and smashing the home of his neighbor.

the eye of the hurricane

We were doing about 620 miles-per-hour, 200 feet above the desert, in total darkness. Everything was running on rails as we approached the target. Then all hell broke loose. I remember the missile being fired at us; I broke left and shouted, “Chaff!” These questions could spark a whole unit of work. I am sure your children will come up with a range of different ideas.

The entire hurricane rotates around the eye, and it is usually 20-60 miles in diameter. When this part of the hurricane hits land, it is the calmest area inside of the storm. In fact, people often think the storm has passed and go outside only to be caught by the approaching eyewall. Overwater, however, the eye of a hurricane is one of the most dangerous places to be. Eyes less than 10 miles in diameter are known as a pinhole eye. Often, a pinhole eye is associated with a powerful hurricane. Some of the most destructive hurricanes have had pinhole eyes, and major hurricanes are classified as Category 3 or stronger. Former Tornado Navigator John Nichol tells the incredible story of the RAF Tornado force during the First Gulf War in 1991; the excitement and the danger, the fear and the losses. It is an extraordinary account of courage and fortitude. It's important to remember that these observations come from a limited number of survivors and storm chasers. Being inside the eye of a tornado is exceedingly dangerous and not something one should ever attempt. The sudden calm should not be mistaken for the end of the storm, as the deadly winds will resume as soon as the tornado's eye passes. Even after his team found the tornado and drove along a dirt road in Iowa to a place they were fairly certain lay in its path. Samaras remained unsure of where exactly he should leave the probe. He stood watching the tornado boil toward him, then, at the last second, he jogged over, hefted the 80-pound (36-kilogram) probe, and shifted it 40 feet (12 meters) to the north. Samaras guessed right: The eye passed just 10 feet (3 meters) from the probe, giving the cameras the closest ever view of the fierce winds turning just off the ground around a tornado's center. This clear space is surrounded by a ring of heavy rain and debris that is often moving outward, away from the tornado’s center. That’s because the winds are spinning incredibly fast and creating centrifugal force that pulls these objects away from the middle of the storm. Sometimes areas of heavy rain that are a little farther removed from the tornado spiral inward toward the area of rotation, like the spiral bands that extend outward from the eye of a hurricane.There is a focus on the characters and their relationships, which worked well, but when that wasn’t at the forefront, and the film was showcasing the panic and tension, that’s when it thrived. Some tornadoes have only one main funnel cloud. Others have multiple small funnels that rotate around each other. There are even tornadoes that don’t have a funnel cloud at all. As long as winds are rotating in a tight circle all the way from the storm cloud down to the ground, it’s a tornado, even if atmospheric conditions haven’t condensed water vapor in the air into a visible funnel. The eye of a tornado is typically clear or filled with a light dust haze. The air pressure is significantly lower than in surrounding areas, which can create an odd, heavy feeling in one's ears, similar to the sensation experienced when changing altitude rapidly. The sky was a vicious shade of greenish grey, the wind was unbelievably loud, and my mother and the other American woman did what one does when a tornado is possibly about to uproot your home. That is, they sought shelter in the basement of the house. The Aussie and the Kiwi on the other hand, ran to the front porch to watch this incredible force of nature, all while their loves screamed at them to seek shelter. If we placed cameras in the path of a tornado, they would either be damaged by the strong winds and swirling debris, or become so caked with mud and water that they wouldn’t produce any useful pictures. And of course, it’s not safe for humans to try to observe tornadoes at close range. It’s important to always seek shelter when tornado conditions develop.

I try to reach my dad through the veil to ask his advice, but he is silent. Samhain is still a ways off after all. But he’s always with me in my memories of him. In his stories. His stories tell me that I can get through this storm. That I can look at it with wonder and awe and see the quiet center. I’m overwhelmed with trying to do so much and not making much progress and yet as the tornado rips through my life, I find myself staring unflinchingly into its eye. There’s this quiet calm that I can sense. Scientists really don’t know the answer to this question. There are no visual observations from inside of a tornado, because these storms create very violent and dangerous conditions on the ground. You can see why I barely read anything this month but as I’d like to continue with my end of month reading updates here is what I did read in September: Pride and Prejudice . This was a reread for me. I think I started it in August, but I finished it this month. What can I say that hasn’t already been said? I love this book. Just not as much as Emma. Still, it’s a 5 out of 5 for me.

the eye of the storm

These small, but to me satisfying, successes in my writing life do seem the seed of a new beginning, but it’s more a feeling of something on its way. Something I can’t yet see but will help me get through this difficult time. Estranged from a mother who was never capable of loving them Sir Basil, a famous but struggling actor in London and Dorothy, an impecunious French princess, attempt to reconcile with her. In doing so they are reduced from states of worldly sophistication to floundering life.