A powerful storm a few years back didn’t just topple trees in Suffolk County—it may have upended decades of meteorological theory. Thomas R. Muller, a retired engineer from Brookhaven National Laboratory, believes he’s uncovered the true mechanical structure of tornadoes after witnessing one firsthand on his Manorville property.
“I was closing a gate on my farm when the wind kicked up hard, and within seconds, two trees were snapped clean in half behind me,” Muller said. “There was no roar, no warning”—just a blast of rain on his leg and then devastation.
But what Muller noticed next didn’t match the traditional “funnel cloud” description. The trees were broken about 10 feet above the ground—mid-trunk—without disturbing their neighbors or even the leaves on nearby branches. That prompted the veteran engineer to launch a full-scale analysis using his expertise in machinery and decades of experience working with Long Island trees.
His conclusion? Tornado winds don’t spin around in a funnel as many have believed. Instead, Muller theorizes that they act more like a mechanical fan belt, with air cycling vertically as if between two pulleys—one near the ground and another higher in the atmosphere. The “belt” of air moves up and down at incredible speeds, delivering isolated bursts of destructive force before hopping over adjacent areas and striking again. He calls it the “Fan-Belt Tornado Model.”
Muller’s theory fits eyewitness observations from the November 2021 storm, a July 1989 Long Island tornado, and another recent one that also hit Manorville. In all cases, trees were snapped mid-height and laid down across roofs or the forest floor, without the telltale debris swirls or widespread destruction depicted in traditional tornado models.
What might have remained a backyard curiosity gained interest after Muller released his technical report: “The Discovery of the True Mechanical Structure of Tornados on Long Island.” The report challenges the long-standing Fujita scale, suggesting it vastly underestimates wind speeds and ignores the role of vacuum forces during touchdown. Muller holds that the intense vacuum within a storm cell enables small items such as branches to be driven into solid wood, a phenomenon he saw with the trees knocked down on his farm.
Though he holds no formal degree in meteorology, Muller’s credentials are formidable. During his 35-year career at Brookhaven Lab, he helped fabricate a 138kV superconducting transmission cable and was awarded a U.S. patent for a wood-processing shear system designed for renewable energy production.
His story also has a near-mystical twist: while the 2021 storm approached, Muller’s son—hundreds of miles away in Indiana—called his mother after receiving a storm alert for Long Island. “It was like a warning from the sky itself,” the 81-year-old engineer said. “And just seconds after I closed the gate, the trees snapped. It was instantaneous.”
The National Weather Service confirmed tornado activity in the area that day, and Muller met with meteorologists at the Upton office to discuss his findings. He hopes his “fan belt” model will lead to better understanding—and potentially lifesaving innovations—in storm prediction and mitigation.
For now, he continues observing from the ground, armed with a chainsaw, a bulldozer, and a new way of seeing the sky.