With all the crazy weather and the tornadoes hitting the US recently, I was curious: Did the ancients ever leave any writings indicating anything about the existence of tornadoes? Hurricanes?
Ancients is kind of vague, but I basically mean anyone from before the Dark ages.
In Europe the first recorded tornado was in 1054 in Rosdalla, Ireland. (cite) (Note “recorded”…certainly they occurred before that)
Certainly tornadoes happen elsewhere in the world and were not unknown to the ancients but tornadoes outside the US are comparatively rare (tornado alley in the US has by far the majority of the world’s tornadoes). Also, when you consider population densities were far, far lower than they are today is was even more unlike a tornado would hit a high population area and cause damage that people would take note of and write something about.
I do not know if native Americans wrote about tornadoes or not. When European settlers started settling in those areas we were well beyond the Dark Ages.
Bit a long read but you will learn how a tornado helped to defeat the British in the war of 1812.
The story was on the History Channel recently.
There’s that, there’s the kamikaze wind, and… what else? How often do hurricanes or tornadoes influence the course of wars?
I dunno about hurricanes or tornadoes and such influencing wars but weather has repeatedly changed the course of wars (ask Napoleon for starters).
Or the Spanish Armada against England.
Just to note, this is from an entry in the Irish annals that talks about a “belltower of fire” (online translations mostly read “steeple”) with a bunch of black birds flying in and out of it. It’s not impossible to read it as a description of a tornado, but obvious tornado-related words like “wind” and “circular” don’t occur anywhere in the description.
Water Spouts were described in some early writings. Does that count?
See Crack.com’s article on Six Real Historic Wars Decided By Divine Intervention.
Tornadoes occur all over the world but the U.S. is the main place where you get the suck you out of your brick house and kill all your pets kind. The Native Americans that lived in tornado alley weren’t much for writing stuff down plus most of them died off. They might have mentioned that history of the area to the early white settlers as they pushed west but who listens to them?
The biblical record states ( before 800 B.C.)
“and Elijah **went up **to heaven in a whirlwind.” (2 King 2:11 ) There is also the “pillar of cloud” the people of Israel witnessed at the Red Sea. It was said to be a “whirlwind” in Psalm 77
Tom Windsor (author) “Life is Like a Weather Forecast”