20-May-2002
Excerpt: Although meteorologists have greatly improved their understanding of how certain conditions generate especially powerful thunderstorms and how these towering heat engines can spin out twisters, the experts have yet to figure out what ingredients spawn an F-5.
"This is still fundamentally one of the things we can't predict," said Dr. Harold E. Brooks, a research meteorologist at the National Severe Storms Laboratory in Norman, Okla. "I'm not even sure we know what measurements we need to take to try to understand them."
- Finding the What, When, Where and Why of the Supertwister, Andrew C. Revkin, NYTimes, 02/05/07