So say the nuts among us:

("My House First . . . The Cleansing of the Lord's House Commenced with an Unprecedented Tornado in Salt Lake City, October 1999," at: http://www.originalbookofmormonrestored.com/HisHouseFirst.html)
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As one observer satirically observed:

"Let's go back to 1999 for a moment. What did the tornado hit or damage during its brief existence?

"1. The outdoor retailers summer market (many men in the church make the outdoors a second religion and hunt for sport)

"2. Gay bars (no explanation needed there)

"3. The Delta Center (many Saints also make basketball a religion and have been known to attend playoff games on Sunday)

"4. Hotels (many Hotels in Salt Lake offer porn)

"5. Restaurants (fine dining)

"6. State government offices (no explanation needed there)

"7. The new LDS conference center (was undergoing construction at the time - some consider it to be a 'great and spacious building')

"8. The Avenues (ritzy part of Salt Lake where the rich live, including many GA's) Of those 8, what does the new City Creek Center offer? Retail shopping, alcohol, expensive lodging, fancy eateries, a highly expensive complex constructed by the church (just like the conference center was) and you could say it's also 'ritzy'. Quite interesting. Was this tornado just a freak, random act of nature... or something more? I think that answer is obvious."



Edited 5 time(s). Last edit at 05/21/2013 04:40AM by steve benson.

I have an in law that works for Layton construction. They were the General contractor for the great and spacious building. According to him the twister just hopped over the tabernacle and barely touched the assembly hall.....in over words, It was a miracle.

In my college days, I took a meteorology class, where I did a research paper on the nature and behavior of tornadoes.

The so-called "hopping" element of tornadic funnels is a common characteristic of these windstorms, one that is frequently observed and empirically decipherable.

For your sincere but uninformed in-law, here are a couple of basic explanations of what is taking place--activity which he is ignorantly misinterpreting as a "miracle":

"Tornadoes don’t hop, jump or skip. They can pull back up into the clouds and spawn again sometime later. They can carve a path through a neighborhood that spares some houses and demolishes others, leaving the impression the tornado skipped houses. While it’s true a tornado can completely destroy one house and minimally damage another right next to it, the reason has nothing to do with jumping or skipping.

"It has to do with the internal structure and varying intensity of a tornado and the path the tornado takes. The funnel of a tornado is sometimes composed of two or more vortexes which are just like smaller tornadoes that spin around in a circle. This kind of tornado is called a multiple-vortex tornado and is almost always responsible for narrow paths of extreme destruction. We normally can’t see the individual vortexes because condensation and debris obscure the internal structure and give a tornado that wedge shape appearance. . . .

"A large tornado’s destruction can vary significantly in just a quarter mile or so. As an example, one neighborhood might experience destruction consistent with an F3 tornado, but by the time the tornado crosses into the next neighborhood, the intensity might have dropped off considerably down to an F1. By the time it reaches the next neighborhood, it could very well have re-intensified into an F3 or greater. The neighborhood lucky enough to experience F1 strength destruction will suffer far less damage compared the to other areas that experienced the F3 or greater tornado intensity. This may give the appearance that the tornado skipped over a set of houses in one neighborhood while inflicting heavy damage both in front and behind it."

"Can a Tornado Skip Houses?," at: http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=4&cad=rja&ved=0CEgQFjAD&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.weatherimagery.com%2Fblog%2Ftornado-skip-house%2F&ei=9eKaUeHIHe3F4AP_nIDQCA&usg=AFQjCNGLEJoS2M81Y3U0yJX3BthxIFlVCg&sig2=CGOYRA_ZF4zegk2ed8YS8A&bvm=bv.46751780,d.dmg


"Tornado Myth: Tornadoes can skip houses.

"Truth: It has been observed that some houses remain standing while other houses in the immediate vicinity are destroyed. Studies by Dr Fujita indicate that the main funnel will not touch houses in very close range but there are smaller funnels called 'multiple vortices' which appear to dart around the main funnel. If a house happens to be in the path of a one of these vortices, it can be destroyed."

"Tornado Behavior--Fact and Fiction," at: http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&ved=0CC4QFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fsuite101.com%2Farticle%2Ftornado-myths-exposed-a46474&ei=8-aaUZSqCu_64AORj4C4CQ&usg=AFQjCNFQHHFVJ9zC2jRUo6o1zQq0ZyneGg&sig2=UJ4Jf1APX-LGN0lzRR1Mog&bvm=bv.46751780,d.dmg
_____


What we observe with twisters behaving this way is not a "miracle" but, rather, typical tornadic activity that is well understood by professional scientists, therefore negating the need for magical interpretation conjured up by bamboozled believers in religious superstition.



Edited 4 time(s). Last edit at 05/21/2013 03:34AM by steve benson.

Laminar flow can be modeled using mathematics based on a fluid's properties (viscosity, density, surface tension, molecular cohesion, etc.).

Turbulent flow, on the other hand, can only be approximated using best-fit equations based on empirical observation.

I am always fascinated observing water cascade over river rocks, or watching ionized gases rise as wood is consumed in a campfire, or the interaction between the air and water vapor as a thunderstorm forms. Fluid flow is mesmerizing for me, even as it sometimes destroys.



"Turbulence is the most important unsolved problem of classical physics." ~ Richard Feynman



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/20/2013 11:50PM by schlock.

you must be a fan of high reynolds numbers.

god sent the tornado to destroy a gay bar. the rest was just collateral damage.

'cause god has lousy aim? ;-)

So he didn't see the collapse of the crane on the conference center site as a bad sign?

I remember right after that, someone was telling me that a long time ago some mormon bigwig had said that as long as people paid their tithing there would be no strange winds in Utah. Naturally, this was a sign that members needed to start paying an honest tithe.

I had just walked up memory grove/city creek canyon when the sky got alarmingly, abnormally black and ominous. As I was without rain gear I decided to book it back to avoid the storm. Started out as a jog but when I got to memory grove it started to hail and screech so I picked it up a bit. I looked to my right towards the capitol and saw trash and dust floating hundreds of feet in the air. Thought: "omg! wtf?". How did that trash get so high? I didn't put 2 and 2 together, because Utah just NEVER has tornadoes, right? By this time I was in an all-out run down the road of houses below memory grove. I remember hearing big clunks of things, like construction work going on. Another wtf moment: "Why don't those guys stop working and take cover?" I thought I would just duck into one of those garages and take cover then I thought "no, how would I explain to the owner I was there because I was afraid of the wind?" At the little park at the bottom of third Ave I was in a full-on sprint when all hell broke loose and trees started falling down around me. Now, all politeness left me and I dove onto the porch of one of the houses there and sequestered myself against the porch wall just as a big tree fell 20 feet away. In about 20 seconds the edge of the tornado passed over me and it was terrifying. There was a chain link fence near me with aluminum slats that were rattling like a piece of cellophane held out a car window doing 90. I feared being cut to death if they flew loose. The noise was immense.
After awhile the noise and wind started to abate and I heard it move up into the avenues. I STILL hadn't put 2 and 2 together enough to call it a tornado. But I collected myself, and ran to my apartment and got my camera and headed back up to memory grove. Then I saw all the trees down and all the destruction and finally knew "this had to have been a tornado".

Anyway. A day to remember.

Good storytelling, bish.

We were sitting in the Chuck A Rama on fourth just below the avenues where we lived...love the aves. We were watching the funnel cloud. People at a table by ours were panicking in terror saying "look its a funnel cloud get down." They were from out of state. We were all saying "dont worry. We just dont have those here." lol. Then the funnel cloud moved with lightning speed and we heard a crash sound from downtown when it hit. My dad had wandered downtown to take pictures and suddenly, I felt panicked realizing it really was a tornado. I remember sadly it did paralyze a mo who worked in moville.

Didn't that old tree outside the Temple where all the newlyweds had their pictures taken get uprooted by the tornado?

I guess that's God's way of telling the saints to stop the foolishness.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xbK0C9AYMd8



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/07/2013 08:31PM by steve benson.

When Nashville was hit by a Tornado, about a year after they rejected the zoning permit for the Nashville temple, resulting in it being built in a then rural area just outside the city, the Knoxville Stake President, and local CES Institute Director insisted it was divine punishment from God. Most of the local Mormons quickly agreed.

Now this guy was one of the few decent true believing Mormon leaders I have ever met, but it was still a disgusting opinion, as the vast majority of people harmed, had nothing to do with the rejection of the temple building permit.

But if so, He missed.

I'd just checked out the airport; the big Outdoor Retailer show began the next day, and business was booming with "set-up people." It was noon, though, and the "cab feeder" was packed. I headed back into town to pick up a radiator for the ol' police interceptor (in my "young newbie" days the idea of being an owner-operator was appealing. Now I let others do the mechanical work. They're way better at it than I am).

I didn't think anything about the noisy thunderstorm that followed me up North Temple (the freeway was closed for "Olympics Reconstruction").

I walked into the radiator shop off 600 South and 2nd East, picked up the radiator, and was out in five minutes. Some people were looking up in the sky, and I saw the telltale rotation of the funnel cloud that had just lifted off the ground above Memory Grove. Someone said it had touched down on the west side.

I drove right through Ground Zero within ten minutes, noted the windows blown out of the Delta Center and the Wyndham Hotel--now the downtown Radisson--and gave the radiator to the mechanic. Another owner-operator who had the nicest and newest cab in the fleet had had his windows blown out. He was pretty shook up.

Damage to non-LDS facilities: The Sun Tavern, as noted, which never re-opened. The Wyndham... Some houses on the Avenues east of Memory Grove; some old trees there were sheared off...

LDS Damage: The Delta Center, owned by faithful LDS member, the late Larry H. Miller... Dee's Restaurant, also owned by a church-going family (I know; a cousin of my mother's married into it), the crane at the Conference Center (as detailed, the operators pointed them into the wind and then skedaddled down the ladder).

The late W. Cleon Skousen insisted the maelstrom was a "warning from God" since it "targeted the "gay area" of the city (presumably Marmalade Hill). I laughed at that since most of my gay customers lived in the 9th and 9th area. Poor W.C. was obviously in orbit before Sputnik...

I was sick when I heard it hit the OR tent, but miraculously, only one person was killed. Most were at lunch. I was doing shuttle work for an RV rental operation back then, and it was a nightmare trying to get people into downtown in the next few hours because they shut everything down...

Every year at OR time I get to share stories with the old-timers (or impress the newbies); unfortunately the idiots in the Utah Legislature have slaughtered that particular cash cow (they hate tree-hugging evironmentalists, honest), and the show is headed elsewhere.

Just last month, however, we just had a huge "Young Living" convention that was pretty good. Once again Planet Utah proves it's the bull$#!^ capital of the Western United States with its "network marketing" operations. The reality about "LDS Guillibility" is those folks are so damn sincere about it, honest, and they persist in exporting it to the rest of the world.

While the LDS nutcases attribute the events as miraculous proof of God punishing the wicked and sparing the Temple, there were probably Evangelicals hearing news of a tornado hitting Salt Lake as proof God was punishing the Mormons.

When I was a kid in Texas, a tornado destroyed our LDS branch chapel and a couple houses, but did very little damage anywhere else because the chapel was on a pretty rural road. I'm sure people there in the Bible belt also took that as a sign that God was punishing the Mormons.

Interestingly, a local baptist Church let our branch use their building while the chapel was rebuilt. Several kids had Mormon baptisms in a Baptist font.

I was at work the day the tornado touched down in and just before the tornado touched down, the sky was a strange green color;it was just like the color of my slacks I was wearing that day. What makes the sky turn that weird color?

I remember the clouds being green. it's just weird I tell ya'.

I have to be honest (or otherwise I'd be a Dishonest Truth Believing Mormon) that I don't pay much attention to those folklore stories. Sometimes in F&T meeting the tears will be flowing as people talk about such folklore and then people get confused into thinking that the Holy Ghost has proven that every word that ever came out of the mouth of the Brethren is the eternal unchanging non-contradicted word of God Almighty. But I think there are better ways to build testimonies about the Truth and show people how true, honest, transparent, and truthful the LDS church is. Just go to the Church website home page and see how prominently, frankly, transparently, and honestly it addresses all of the biggest issues that cause people to have doubts and not get fully on board with getting fully assimilated into the Kingdom under the dominion of the Brethren. If you come away from clicking thinking "gosh this is such a super honest and transparent Church with leaders who have always tried super hard to be completely honest & I want to read/ponder/pray to know for myself that its a true Church" then you may be on the wondrous path to re-assimilation. If you have a smart phone all you need to do is say "LDS church" and the internet search engine will give you links to the home page prominently. And then even better is that once you do that first click then you can presume that the links you need to address your concerns should be right there (in order that doubts not be able to fester) as the leadership certainly knows the important responsibility to be true and how devastating it would be for Missionary Work to not meet the standards of "continuing revelation" transparency in this modern era. So take a few seconds out of your day on your smartphone to prove me right :) Now of course if the links with complete honest answers don't come up quickly then my credibility is toast as you will probably think "what a dishonest Church that seems to hide things, what else have they been dishonest about" and then doubts may build over time :(

These people need to explain why God killed 7 innocent children in Plaza Towers Elementary school in Moore, Oklahoma in 2013.

Tornadoes are part of nature, they are governed by the laws of physics, albeit the turbulent nature of the flow also makes the details of its path and lifetime virtually unpredictable. Nature can be deadly.

numbersRus Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> These people need to explain why God killed 7
> innocent children in Plaza Towers Elementary
> school in Moore, Oklahoma in 2013.

this is the Christopher Hitchens style answer:


Because God is an ASS HOLE who likes seeing children get killed , including His own (supposed) Son.