Tuesday, July 16, 1957 Summer Session-Kansan
Page 3
New Tools Find Twisters In Storm-breeding Areas
"Tornado Alley," the incubator of nature's deadliest storms, is being watched this year as never before.
Once a twister has bored down to earth, the only defense is to get out of the way. To save more lives, weather bureau scientists are devising new tools to quicken warning systems and learn more about the nature of the complex storms.
Radar then starts tracking the dangerous squall line, according to Dr. Morris Tepper, chief of the bureau's severe-storms research unit.
In recent years, the bureau has organized a radar network among key cities east of the Rockies. Volunteer ground corpsmen in a danger zone scan radarscopes for any sign of the dark pendant cloud that rakes the earth like a giant elephant's trunk.
One new instrument forces potential tornadoes to flash their own alarm. Called a "pressure-jump indicator," it records the ominous rise in pressure that often signals the birth of a tornado in storm-breeding squall lines.
Round-The-Clock Alert It is these long frontiers of thunder, wind, and rain that turn unstable air currents into roaring, spinning funnels of destruction.
This year, more than 100 pressure-jump indicators are being operated in the severe storm belt—Kansas, Missouri, Oklahoma, and Texas. The instruments have been set up in police stations, fire houses, city jails, and other places where attendants voluntarily keep an eye on them 24 hours a day.
If barometric pressure eises suddenly, a light goes on and a buzzer sounds until turned off. The observer alerts the nearest weather station by telephone.
Spotters notify communities, which warn residents to take cover.
One obstacle in learning more about the mechanism of tornadoes is their habit of striking quickly, devastatingly, and locally. Delicate instruments can't withstand 500-mile-an-hour winds. Few persons caught in a twister can be expected to give a scientific account of what they see—even if they live through it .
Storm-Hopping Bv Plane
Pilot James Cook, who flies under contract to the bureau, is again storm-hopping out of Kansas City this season. Cook ventures into squall lines in a plane laden with instruments to record pressure, temperature, moisture, wind speeds, and other phenomena.
Not the least of a tornado's terror is its electrical display. Forked lightning—vividly outlined with yellow, green, blue, and purple—often dances against the dull glow of continuous sheet lightning.
At several stations, the weather bureau has installed special equipment to record the presence and direction of such a display. If two stations spot it, the storm can be pin-pointed by triangulation.
Spring brings tornado weather. Though factors are numerous, the time is ripe when cold, dry fronts moving easterly from the Pacific overruns warm, moist air from the Gulf of Mexico. Under certain conditions, the slightest updraft may trigger one or a series of twisters.
Temperatures Continue High
TOPEKA- (UP) -A summer heat-wave continued its uncomfortable hold on Kansas Monday as temperatures soared for the fifth straight day into the range of 100-degrees and above.
The weather bureau said today "not much change" in the weather outlook. The state has had 100-degree marks and above starting last Thursday.
Agriculture officials said the wheat harvest was proceeding more rapidly over most of the state as rain-soaked fields dried under a relentless sun.
A few showers were expected in extreme northwest Kansas, but no rain and no break in the heat in other areas of the Sunflower State.
Salina recorded 103 Sunday. Other cities with 100 and above included Garden City, Russell, and Wichita.
Monotonous, But It Works
CHICAGO — (UP) — A Spanish senator has turned out to be Lady Bountiful for three Chicago youths. The boys, who earn as much as $20 a day serenading passersby on Chicago's Night Club Row, know only one song, "Lady of Spain."
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WASHINGTON—(UP) - U. S. Surgeon General Leroy E. Burney said Monday government scientists have found a chemical agent in cigarette smoke which they suspect may cause lung cancer.
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Burney, in an interview with the United Press, identified the substance as benzopyrene. He said it is formed when the aromatic oils in tobacco are burned at a high temperature and "cracked" much like a crude oil is cracked to make gasoline.
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Benzopyrene May Cause Cancer
Helen Patch, who retired in June as professor of French on the Helen Day Gould Foundation at Mt. Holyoke College in South Hadley, Mass., will be a visiting professor in the Romance language department at KU during the 1957-58 academic year, the chancellor's office announced Monday.
Operations Subcommittee which will start hearings Thursday, said the public is spending an extra half million dollars a day for filters. He said he wants to find out. "If the public is being fooled."
Visiting Professor Is Announced
Burney said benzopyrene was found in significant amounts only in cigarette smoke because only cigarettes burn at high enough temperatures—800 to 815 degrees Fahrenheit—to crack the aromatic oils. Pipe tobacco and cigars burn at much lower temperatures, he said.
The chief of the Public Health Service emphasized that "no one has definitely isolated the cause of lung cancer." But he said researchers believe "excessive and prolonged" exposure to benzopyrene may be it.
Last week Burney issued a statement declaring there is "increasing and consistent evidence" that "excessive" cigarette smoking is one of the causes of lung cancer. The Public Health Service made no recommendation to the public as to how it should act on this information.
Her visit at KU will be sponsored by the Whitney Visiting Professors Program conducted in Cooperation with the New York Foundation. She will teach courses in French composition and literature and conduct a graduate seminar during the spring semester.
Asked by a reporter whether the statement was a warning, Burney said:
"It amounts to a warning to stop smoking cigarettes, but we would like to have more positive proof before issuing a warning as such.
"In other words if you want to know what to do about cigarette smoking, see your doctor.
"In our cigarette research laboratory we have 16 scientists—and 13 are continuing to smoke cigarettes." Burney commented. "I guess they feel this is a personal decision and will take the chance."
Burney said he felt a recently-published magazine (Reader's Digest) report on filter cigarettes, which helped spark a Congressional inquiry, was "quite accurate." The report held that filters afford little if any health safeguard.
Rep. John A. Blatnik (D-Minn.).
chairman of a House Government
Miss Patch received her A.B. degree from Mt. Holyoke and her Ph.D. degree from Bryn Mawr College in Bryn Mawr, Pa.
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