I have just returned fron Judy Garland's home town of Grand Rapids, MN. You remember, she played Dorothy,the little girl who went to Oz in a tornado!! My great grandfather was facinated by the world around him and I am sure he must have seen one or more while traveling as a salesman or later with his own play company in the midwest. When he wrote The Wonderful Wizard of Oz in 1899, I am sure he did not know how famous his "tornado" would become or how many Oz references would be made about tornadoes. What many peolpe do not know is that in his 1908 book, Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz, he gets the pair to Oz by falling in a crack caused by an earthquare (hence the connection to this site !!) He spent his summers in California at the del Coronado Hotel and it was in Southern California he experienced his first quake.
I have read that some tornadoes register on seismographs as long as they are in contact with the ground. Anyone have more information?
Bob Baum