Weather Whys; Tornadoes and Electricity

This is weather wise. Each year many people see tornadoes from a distance as the twisters tear through cities and fields. Some people have even viewed the inside of a tornado and lived to tell the tale. And when any of the witnesses are questioned they will often tell of strange electrical phenomena associated with the tornado or even in the funnel itself. Some of the phenomena are poorly understood, but even those that are explainable may seem eerie. One well-known type of electrical discharge is St. Elmo's Fire, or more scientifically, a corona. It's a luminous blue or green glow which appears around the tips of pointed objects like blades of grass or television antennas. Coronas are the result of the strong electric fields that develop under a thunderstorm, and although they've been reported on the ground ahead of a tornado, they also occur in many non-tornadic thunderstorms as well. The mechanics of coronas are relatively well understood by scientists, but eyewitnesses

report stranger phenomena which can't be well explained. For example, during the Blackwell-Oklahoma tornado of May 25, 1955, several people told of seeing a glowing blue ring several feet wide in the upper part of the tornado funnel. The ring rotated and was described as being brighter than an arc welder. In the McKinney-Texas tornado of May 3, 1948, a witness claimed he saw lightning flashes and a bright glowing cloud inside the tornado itself. And tornadoes which put on electrical displays often leave telltale marks behind. Scorching and burning of vegetation in the tornado's path have been reported for well over a century. Some scientists attribute that to a corona on the ground, but no one knows for sure, and to this day scientists debate the role of electricity in tornadoes. Otherwise was created by William Beasley, with original music by Barry Stramm.