As an adult I got the opportunity to study tornados in Air Force technical school for weather observers, but the meteorological theory of what causes them left my curiosity unsatisfied. It seemed more like a patchwork description than a meaningful explanation.

     Years later I discovered an obscure (to me) mathematical model that revived my interest in tornados. It was the Lorenz attractor shown below:

     The model is a plot of equations describing convection, the thermodynamic process thought to underly the formation of thunderstorms and tornados. MIT researcher Dr. Edward Lorenz used the attractor to demonstrate that weather was chaotic in nature and extremely difficult to predict.

     But chaos theory is not what caught my interest. At the time I was reading volumes about astrophysics and I was immediately struck by the uncanny similarities between black holes and the strange properties of the Lorenz attractor. Both contain:

Event horizons, boundaries beyond which a trajectory can never re-emerge.

Infinite trajectories within a finite space, leading to "nowhere."

A thermodynamic component (as Stephen Hawking postulated for black holes).

     Was this mere coincidence -- or a clue to the hidden cause of tornados? Although black holes are usually portrayed as massive entities in deep space, the existence of mini-black holes only a few millimeters in size is considered theoretically possible. One scientist has even speculated that the 1908 disaster in Tunguska, Siberia, was caused by a mini-black hole that passed through the earth.

     Meteorologists admit they don't know precisely what triggers a tornado to form out of certain cumulonimbus clouds. Their theories are limited to simplistic earth-bound notions such as air mass movement, atmospheric pressure, etc. -- as if the universal laws that govern a black hole in interstellar space have no relevance to weather phenomena. 

     Perhaps the spinning vortex of a tornado is actually a mini-black hole that makes a brief appearance on our planet. That would certainly account for the incredible power of tornados, which are far more destructive to a given area than even hurricanes.      Weather in general may not be the totally mechanistic process that science imagines. Many early cultures believed that weather was a spiritual phenomenon that could be influenced by human behavior such as prayer, rain dances and other ceremonies. In modern times psychologist Wilhelm Reich (seen below) developed a controversial theory that storm clouds could be dissipated by a life force he termed orgone energy.