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Houston located relatively close to each other will At the 21 May meeting, awards were presented to rotate around each other. This finding is extremely two students for outstanding meteorological projects important to the warning program. It can from the 1991 Houston Regional Science Fair. Both never be assumed a tornado will move in a straight students were presented with certificates and a year's line if a second tornado forms nearby. subscription XoWeatherwise. The senior-level award Fujita showed examples where the Fujiwara Effect winner was Steven Crawford, who had presented a applied to two mesocyclones in Tennessee and Geor- project entitled "Dynamics of Common gia on 3 and 4 April 1974. Types." Jeff Thorner, the junior-level award recipient In the 1970s, most tornadoes near oc- presented a project which he titled "Home Weather curred northwest of the city. In the 1980s, the focus of Forecasting." The ninth-grade winner, David Boggs, tornadic activity shifted southwest of the city proper. I n was unable to receive his award in person but is to be 1990, this trend with the Plainfield tornado occurring congratulated for his project called "The Formation of southwest of Chicago continued. A Tornado." The Plainfield tornado was characterized by twin The guest speaker at the May meeting was Robert peaks of very cold air aloft, shooting through and Spellicy, who is senior program manager at Radian above the anvil of the storm as shown from a polar- Corporation. Spellicy discussed some opf the remote orbiting satellite. This same double structure was sensing systems for detection of pollutants in the air. confirmed by weather radar depiction taken from a The advantage of remote sensing is not only the ability commercial aircraft. A damaging of wind to look at many compounds simultaneously, but also occurred well ahead of the formation of the tornado. the ability to do so over very long paths up to kilome- Most of the damage from the tornado was attributed ters in length. by Fujita to the suction vortices within the tornado. Suction vortices that form and dissipate a number of Kansas City times during the life of the storm explain the skipping Over 100 members and guests attended the meet- pattern of damage along the tornado's path. ing held at the Kansas City Royals Stadium Club on The Tokyo-area tornadoes occurred after dark on the evening of 29 May 1991. Ted Fujita, professor 11 December 1990. Over 1800 homes were de- emeritus of the , spoke on the stroyed. Four hook echoes were seen on the radar topic, "What I learned from Three Significant Tornado display that night at the same time. The tornadoes Episodes in 1990." were classified as F3's on the Fujita Tornado Scale. The three tornado episodes that Fujita spoke about The largest tornado path width was 300 ft. were the Hesston, Kansas, episode of 13 March of wind in this episode affected the tornado's path. 1990; the Plainfield, , episode of 28 August Due to the rarity of tornadoes with such strength in 1991; and the Tokyo, Japan, episode of 11 December Japan, the Japanese initially determined erroneous 1990. tornado paths. This again was due to the damage The Hesston, Kansas, tornado was actually two pattern from the internal suction vortices in the torna- tornadoes. One tornado dissipated as another formed. does. Fujita stated that an international team of ex- The intensity of the tornadoes, an F5 on the Fujita perts is required to assess storm damage when an Tornado Scale, was determined by the circular dam- episode of such magnitude occurs in a country. age patterns caused by the suction vortexes within the Fujita concluded his talk by stating that the amateur tornado. These types of circular patterns were first video photographer will bring an abundance of added seen in the Palm Sunday 1965 tornado outbreak. A information into the analyses of future tornadic epi- microburst of wind effected the path of the tornado. sodes. But this video information can only compliment What made the Heston tornado particularly interesting and not replace areal damage assessment of a tor- was that as one tornado was dissipating another new nadic episode. tornado formed and affected the speed and direction The meeting ended with Fujita providing the chap- of the older tornado. During the time both tornadoes ter with a few slides of the prestigious award of merit were in existence, they rotated about a common that he received from the emperor of Japan. center. This case documents for the first time that the Fujiwara Effect can be applied to tornadoes. Fujiwara, director of the Japan Weather Service, noted that two

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1424 Vol. 72, No. 9, September 1991