We should now take an even closer look at the most anomalous cases — the ones in which the objects actually hovered. The reports are consistent in asserting that the fastest winds had already passed, and the eyewitnesses guessed the wind speeds at something like 30 m/s when the objects started "floating." Such winds are clearly insufficient to levitate the objects, and this section presents the more plausible explanation, that the electric force was at work. Yet even in 30 m/s winds, we still wouldn't expect objects to hover — the drag force should have accelerated the objects in the direction of the wind. For example, when Dr. Tracton's car was picked up at least two feet off the driveway, there shouldn't have been a way for it to "settle back down" onto the same driveway. (Watch the videos of cars being picked up by high wind speeds.) The car should have hit (first) at least 5 m off the driveway, and Dr. Tracton probably wouldn't have lived to tell the story.
If we consider the conditions in which this will happen, we find the answer. The objects were subjected to triboelectric charging as the tornado passed by. Then they were levitated. This means that they were then between the RFD and the tornado. There the winds will be traveling from the RFD toward the tornado. If the RFD is the primary source of positive charge, the lines of electric force would not have been straight up. If we look at Figure 75, and assume that the entire RFD is positively-charged, and then consider the force exerted on a negatively-charged object halfway between the RFD and the tornado, we see that the net force will be angled upward, toward the main body of charge in the RFD. (See Figure 104. Note that while electric lines of force intersect a plane conductor perpendicular to it, the Earth is only an excellent conductor below the water table, and the soil above the water table could be a good or fair conductor. So the lines of force will not be perpendicular to the surface, but rather, to the water table, which could be several meters below the surface.) So while the wind will be blowing toward the tornado, the electric force will be upward and back toward the RFD, the net result of which could be no net lateral acceleration. It would be a rare case indeed that the forces happened to be perfectly matched. And so it is in fact. Nevertheless, this is the only way that hovering in 30 m/s winds is possible.
So what can lift a roof straight up, in the absence of aerodynamic uplift, and in winds slight enough that the roof isn't even accelerated (much) in the direction of the winds by the drag force, then to fall back down on walls that were "blown outward"? If it's not aerodynamics, the only other possibility is that it's the electric force. If so, here are two possible signs of charge that could be at work.
First, it's possible that the house becomes negatively charged, by getting sandblasted with negatively-charged particulate matter, or by ingesting such particles matter through broken-out windows. Once the house develops a negative charge, it will be attracted to the positive charge aloft. This is the more likely explanation if the house gets levitated (as discussed in the previous section).
The other possibility is that the dominant force is the positively-charged air flowing through, around, and over the house, that could draw electrons out of the house, leaving it positively charged. In this case, the electric force that would cause the house to "explode" would simply be the electrostatic repulsion of each piece of the house from each other piece. If the structure fails, the pieces will be accelerated upward and outward (simply away from each other). They will not be lofted as we would expect if they were negatively charged. Hence they will "explode" upward and outward, but will then fall to the ground.
It's also significant to note that a house subjected to a strong positive charge might be weaker than a neutrally-charged house. Ionization loosens the covalent bonds that give solids their strength. So the factors acting on the house might include all of the following:
lateral and/or vertical aerodynamic force,
electrostatic repulsion, and
weakened structural beams, posts, and fasteners.
This might also help explain why building materials (such as lumber) seem to "disintegrate" under the force of a tornado, to a degree that cannot be explained simply by the force of the winds. Some damage assessments have explicitly mentioned the surprisingly small size to which everything was reduced. This would make more sense if all of it had a strong positive charge, and therefore did not have its normal strength.
There have also been numerous cases of unusual combinations of strength and weakness in the collisions of objects in tornadoes. Some of these are easily explained away. Figure 105 is frequently cited in cult literature as an example of the bizarre things that a tornado can do. It is easy to understand how a projectile moving at 100 m/s could penetrate wood. The hard part is understanding why the vinyl didn't shatter.
