796 IOWA DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 



eight blocks of the tornado path it is thought that his observations would 

 add to the value of this report. Professor Schmitt says: 



"My attention was first called to the gathering of a storm at 4:30 p. m. 

 when the cirrus sheet, which was spreading across the sky from west to 

 east, obscured the sun. By 5 o'clock two-thirds of the sky were covered 

 by the cirrus, and a few scattered fractocumuli were scudding at a mod- 

 erate altitude from southwest to northeast. At about 5:10 a light rain 

 began to fall, and after this there was considerable play of lightning 

 among the clouds and an almost constant light rumble of thunder. There 

 were, however, as far as I saw, no passages of lightning between clouds 

 and earth at any time before the tornado passed. At approximately 5:30 

 the clouds had lifted from the horizon everywhere, except for a very 

 short stretch in the southwest. This last fact, the peculiar color of the 

 clouds — a muddy buff — and the time of day led me to suspect somewhat 

 the approach of a tornado, but as the wind had shown no signs of 

 veering, as I thought it should, and the season was so early for a storm 

 of this character, I abandoned the idea, and returned to my desk. A 

 pelting of light hail at my windows, and the flickering of the electric 

 light brought me out once more. And there was the funnel-shaped cloud 

 coming down the hill southwest of us at about 40th street. I looked at 

 my watch — it was just 5:49. In front the funnel was sharply defined 

 even to the very ground and its circulation, counter-clockwise, upward 

 and extremely violent, was easily discernible. On either side, however, 

 and in the rear, rolling clouds of dust and vapor hid the outlines of the 

 funnel. I timed the forward progress of the funnel cloud after it had 

 passed California street and found it to be approximately 400 feet per Ki 

 seconds. It was just 5:49 when I first saw the cloud at about 40th and 

 Farnum and it was 5:55 when it crossed 24th street. It moved on much 

 more deliberately than I had expected, the lower extremity dragging consid- 

 erably behind the rest of the cloud. It was rather dark immediately in 

 front of the funnel, but surprisingly light outside the path. The clouds 

 quarter of an hour or so later the pronounced strengthening of the wind, 

 above us hung low, and rushed by at great speed, but showed no gyratory 

 motion. Immediately behind the storm the sky was clear up to the 

 cirrus sheet. Above the funnel the cumulo-nimbus was banked mountain 

 high, much higher than I have ever seen it after the passage of a severe 

 thunderstorm. Before long streamers of mist hung down almost to the 

 ground. At the same time the clouds over Council Bluffs had a similar 

 appearance." 



STORMS IN IOWA ON MARCH 23, 1913. 



During the evening of Easter Sunday, March 23, 1913, several tornadoes 

 moved from Nebraska across the Missouri River into Iowa. In a prelimi- 

 nary report on the general weather conditions that prevailed in Nebraska 

 during the month of March, the Section Director, U. S. Weather Bureau, 

 Lincoln, Neb., says: 



