Tornado at Concepcion

Abstract

A BRIEF summary of damage and loss of life caused by a tornado on May 27 in the Chilean town of Concepcion, the chief port of entry to southern Chile, appeared in some evening papers on May 28, and in the Times of May 29. The storm was described as a “cyclone”, but the note in the Times stated that the damage occurred in a strip 65 ft. wide, and if that statement is correct, there can be no doubt that this was a tornado of the American pattern, and a vigorous example at that, seeing that trees were uprooted and buildings were wrecked as the storm swept across the town, moving apparently from east to west. One account stated that a house was lifted off the ground and carried along for a distance of nearly 55 yards. The incident is of especial scientific interest; if the ‘dust devils’ of desert regions and the maritime or lacustrine ‘waterspouts’ are included under the term ‘tornado’, there appears to be hardly any part of the world where this small intense rotary storm may not occasionally occur; they are not uncommon in the Mediterranean, and Concepcion lies in the corresponding southern latitude and has the same type of climate with maximum rainfall in the winter half of the year. It is then that the westerly winds invade a region that fringes the trade wind belt during the summer. The date of this particular storm corresponds with late November in the Mediterranean, and in both regions the late autumn is in general about the middle of the wettest quarter of the year, when the tornado might be expected to occur most often in coastal regions, even though the American tornado is more a phenomenon of the late spring and summer.