Researcher fears roundabout could generate tornadoes

Since Athens’ traffic circle opened last fall at the intersection of Richland Avenue and Ohio Rt. 682, fears that the unfamiliar driving pattern might cause a spike in traffic accidents have proved unfounded. An Ohio University graduate student, however, warned Tuesday that during research for his master’s thesis, he’s come to believe that a much bigger, unsuspected danger may be lurking in the “roundabout” – incredibly powerful mini-tornadoes.

“Typically, roundabouts in larger cities have a much greater circumference than the one here,” explained Aaron Doppler-Radar, who’s pursuing his master’s in virtual highway climatology. “They’re like highway cloverleafs, with cars continually speeding up and slowing down at multiple access points. This allows the central atmospheric vortex that’s created by a stream of vehicles moving around a single point to be constantly interrupted and dissipated, so it can never build up to where it’s self-amplifying. Athens’ traffic circle, on the other hand, has such a small diameter – it’s really more of a wide turn – that, according to my computer modeling, under certain peak usage conditions, with a steady flow of traffic moving at roughly uniform speed, you could see the creation of a compact, high-velocity funnel cloud, powerful enough to lift off from its point of origin and careen through the surrounding area, leaving untold destruction in its wake. It’s basically the same effect by which migrating birds cause the earth to rotate, but on a smaller scale.”

Doppler-Radar’s thesis adviser, associate professor of broadcast meteorology Richard Goddard, said he’s convinced his protégé may be onto something.

“Aaron’s an awful bright kid, always messing around with graphs and equations and whatnot,” Goddard observed, as he sat in his office beneath a sign reading “Weathermen Do It With Their Lightning Rods.”  “I’m a little shaky on the math, but he did show me a very cool flash animation, with cartoon cars and trucks racing round and round, while this whirling concentric storm gradually builds up in the middle, getting bigger and faster, till all of a sudden it starts whipping back and forth, throwing cars around like a baby throws oatmeal.  I’m real proud of him. Mostly the students I advise just plagiarize stuff off the Internet about the different kinds of clouds or something, but Aaron’s project is totally original.”

Doppler-Radar’s conclusions rest on a previously undiscovered principle of fluid mechanics that he calls “exponential micro-cyclonic Bernoulli acceleration.” He compared it to the well-known phenomenon in which the simultaneous flushing of multiple toilets on the same street causes typhoons to erupt from underground sewers, rocketing iron manhole covers miles into the sky and often downing commercial airliners.

“I know to the layperson, theoretical vehicular climate physics probably seems like a lot of impossibly complex mathematical modeling, performed by guys with I.Q.s so big they makes regular people seem like pigs or donkeys,” he said. “But it has real-world implications. I still can’t believe the people who planned this roundabout never stopped to realize they were building a giant centrifuge of terror – a perfect storm machine.”

Not everyone is convinced by the young researcher’s theory.  “What I can’t believe is that anyone even listens to this nitwit,” said Randy Rock, director of Athens’ Streets Department and a strong proponent of the roundabout. “All he’s doing is recycling a silly piece of folklore that’s been around since the Model T, that driving cars somehow changes the weather. It’s an urban myth, like ‘cats suck the breath out of babies,’ or ‘never blow-dry your hair in the bathtub.’”

Local conspiracy theorist Dan Marconi labeled Rock’s comments a predictable government whitewash.

 “Hmmm, let’s see – roundabout opens Aug. 31, 2010,” he noted. “Precisely 16 days later, Athens County is rocked by multiple violent storms including funnel clouds, in which some observers report seeing what clearly appear to be flying hubcaps. But oh, no, there couldn’t be any connection. And barcodes are just a harmless product tracking device. Uh huh. Let’s all wag our tails now, like the good little sheep we are. Baa. Come on, bleat with me, don’t be shy. Baa-a-a-a-a.”

City Councilmember Wahoo Getserious, meanwhile, confirmed Saturday that he plans to introduce a resolution at tonight’s Council meeting to erect a windmill on the roundabout’s traffic island.

Though the environmentally conscious councilmember helped spearhead an earlier effort to install solar panels at the Athens Community Center, he said he has never heard of Doppler-Radar or his theories, and that he isn’t talking about a sleek metal tri-blade wind turbine, but rather a big conical structure of unfinished stone, with four creaky paddle-like wooden blades, and set in a field of nodding tulips.

“It’s not an alternative energy project,” Getserious explained. “I just think a big Dutch windmill would look really nice on that spot.”