Tuesday, November 08, 2005



November 6, 2005.

This is a two horse trailer that was lifted from it's resting place at Ellis Race Track and tossed like a toy.

One thing that is difficult for others to understand is that scientists although not without emotion are able to remain dispassionate when looking at wreckage from these storms.

This picture fascinates me.

This trailer is mostly aire inside where the horses stand in transport. As a matter of fact if there are traffic accidents with trailers like this, horses are not well protected for the 'boxy' constuction. But, enough of that mess, there were no horses in this trailer.

However, this trailer weighs about 3000 pounds. The heaviest aspect of the trailer is it's wheels. The wheels are up. Now, if a crane was to lift this trailer off the ground and drop it the trailer more than likely would land on it's wheels. That didn't happen here. As a matter of fact if I were to measure the angle and mass of this trailer I could tell you exactly where in the sky it dropped from as it exited the tornado.

See, the trailer had a centrifical force holding the wheels toward the inside of the tornado vortex. When the velocity of the trailer's weight and it's centrifical force grew stronger than the tornado itself it flew from the inside to the outside of the vortex. It immediately met with gravity, a 'known' mathematical quantity. So, it started to fall to the ground in a bit of an arch but a rapidly decreasing arch. As it fell the heaviest part of the trailer. The wheels with axils started to rotate to the right. Eventually, the trailer would have landed on it's axils IF it had enough aire travel.

Follow?

But.

This trailer. This two horse trailer, weighing about 3000 pounds with a known mass landed on it's right corner leaving the left side virtually untouched or damaged.

So. When I look at this picture taken by an undergrad from University of Illinois who is a student in science I see the rotation of the trailer, it's arch, it's velocity and the vorticity of the tornado when the trailer was released from it's centrifical force and where exactly in the sky this trailer found it's gravity pull rather than it's centrifical pull in the vortex of the tornado.

By the way, when I use vortex and tornado in the same statement it is like using the same term twice.


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