Word: cloud
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...first, the tornado was just a wispy tendril trailing from a cloud--too fragile, it seemed, to do any harm. But suddenly it spawned three new funnels that spiraled around their parent in a deadly dance. Then, as the car his partner was driving skidded along a mud-slicked road near Hanston, Kansas, Robert Davies-Jones glanced nervously through a rear window and saw that this menacing whorl of dust and debris was following a bit too closely behind. Just as wild animals sometimes turn and track their hunters, Davies-Jones realized with growing alarm, the tornado he had started...
Before VORTEX, scientists had a general idea of how tornadoes come to be. They knew, for example, that big twisters are most likely to be generated by what are termed supercell storms--towering cloud structures that sometimes top out at 65,000 ft. and concentrate energy in dangerous ways. Supercells typically form in spring as warm, moist air from the Gulf of Mexico flows north and pushes through colder, dryer layers of air. As it rises, this upwelling of warm air begins to cool, and the moisture it contains condenses first into cloud droplets and then into rain. At that...
Finally, the shape of Hyakutake's orbit tells astronomers that it has been here before, perhaps 9,000 years ago. That's crucial: the only reason a comet is visible at all is that its tiny core, just a few miles across, is surrounded by a giant cloud of gas and dust that can spread over a million miles. The cloud spews from the comet itself, as the sun's heat turns its dirty, icy surface into dirty water vapor mixed with other gases. If a comet is on its maiden voyage to the inner solar system, though, its surface...
Hyakutake's status as a return visitor makes it ideal for amateur stargazers but a bit less enticing to scientists. Comets are believed to be leftover material from the formation of the solar system 4.5 billion years ago. Millions are still orbiting lazily in a halo called the Oort cloud, far beyond Pluto, where they are perfectly preserved. It's only occasionally that one changes orbit and plunges into the relative warmth of Earth's neighborhood. And the more often a comet returns to be heated, the more its structure and chemical composition are altered...
...dossier B&W compiled about Wigand to help discredit his testimony, the whistle blower comes across as a chronic troublemaker, quick to complain if his consumer goods were lost or damaged. He also left a previous job under something of a cloud. Several weeks ago, Jack Paller, CEO of Biosonics, Inc., a New Jersey medical-device company, told TIME that in 1987 he had demanded the resignation of Wigand, who was chief operating officer, because he was abusive to the staff. Wigand's attorney contends his client was concerned that Paller was misrepresenting the efficacy of a product...