Answering a Reader’s Eastern U.S.Land of Promise – Part XIV: Migration and Tornadoes

Continuing with David McKane’s comments on our blog and his maps and claimed area for the Land of Promise in the Great Lakes area. Over the past few weeks McKane has tried to dominate our blog with his comments, most of which are both erroneous and clear misunderstandings of the scriptural record, and the events that have and are taking place in South America as well as in his model area of the United States.
    McKane writes: “The nephites migrated north because they were being overrun by lamanites.”
    Response: Again, he errs in understanding what was taking place in the Land of Promise. The Nephites, fed up with war, left for the north and knowing there was open land in the Land Northward, headed that way.
1. “And it came to pass in the forty and sixth, yea[r], there was much contention and many dissensions; in the which there were an exceedingly great many who departed out of the land of Zarahemla, and went forth unto the land northward to inherit the land” (Helaman 3:3).

These individuals were not driven north by the Lamanites, but were fed up with the government, the argument and conflict, and were looking for other land further away from everything that was going on. In the following verses 4-11 it shows they were not running from the Lamanites, but were moving into new lands and building cities of both wood and cement. And in verses 12-32 we find a great amount of peace that was established over the land—all of this was done without Lamanite aggression causing it. In fact, it was the dissenting Nephites who caused an end to this peace, not the Lamanites (Helaman 4:1-4) until they were stirred up by the Nephite dissenters (Helaman 4:5).
2. “And it came to pass that in the thirty and seventh year of the reign of the judges, there was a large company of men, even to the amount of five thousand and four hundred men, with their wives and their children, departed out of the land of Zarahemla into the land which was northward…there were many of the Nephites who did enter therein and did sail forth with much provisions, and also many women and children; and they took their course northward… And the first ship did also return, and many more people did enter into it; and they also took much provisions, and set out again to the land northward” (Alma 63:4,6-7). These individuals were migrating northward, but not being driven by the Lamanites or did the Lamanites cause them to go northward, but evidently the movement was part of an economic shipping program, with Hagoth’s ships supplying the means of transport.

3. “And it came to pass that in this year there were many people who went forth into the land northward. And thus ended the thirty and eighth year” (Alma 63:9). Again, though a war with the Lamanites followed this event, the event itself was not driven by the war or the Lamanites, but of a mass exodus of Nephites from the Land Southward into the Land Northward.
    Thus, these three incidents of mass movement into the Land Northward, the basic migration of the Nephites as listed in the scriptural record, did not move northward because “they were being overrun by the Lamanites,” as McKane claims. However, there are two other mass exodus movements that were more-or-less caused by the Lamanites, the first was Nephi being told by the Lord to take those who would go with him and flee the Land of First Inheritance (1 Nephi 5:5), and the second, after the more wicked part of the Nephites had been destroyed (Omni 1:5), sparing the righteous (Omni 1:7), and many wars with the Lamanites (Omni 1:10), Mosiah was told to flee out of the Land of Nephi with as many as would go with him (Omni 1:12).
    So we see that while early on, before the Nephites had entered the Land of Zarahemla, they were driven northward by the Lamanites—and then Mosiah into the Land of Zarahemla—but from that point onward, the Lamanites had nothing to do with their movement northward and into the larger portion of the Land of Promise. Nor were the extremely large migrations caused by the Lamanites as shown above.
    McKane writes: “The Book of Mormon mentions tornadoes. North America has tornado alley the place that Del mentions nope. “And there were some who were carried away in the whirlwind; and whither they went no man knoweth, save they know that they were carried away” (3 Nephi 8:16).”

Response: These are some notable tornadoes, tornado outbreaks, and tornado outbreak sequences that have occurred in the Southern Hemisphere including Oceania, all of South America, and Africa. In addition, the region in South America named “Tornado Corridor” is considered as the second largest in the world in terms of the formation of extreme weather events.” There have been significant tornadoes registered in this area of South America since 1816, including the longest tornadoes and the most multi-vortexed in the Southern Hemisphere. In one 24-hour period, as an example, more than 300 tornadoes hit along the Pampas Plain.
    In the U.S., where the most tornadoes hit, besides tornado alley, which is generally considered to be Oklahoma, Kansas, the Texas Panhandle, Nebraska, eastern South Dakota, and eastern Colorado, there are other areas that have tornadoes, such as northern Alabama and northern Mississippi, and Florida (part of the Dixie Tornado Belt). Likewise, in South America, there are other areas that have significant tornadoes than just the Tornado Corridor.
    Tornadoes can occur in Northern South America according to the U.S. Weather (New York), “However, it is widely agreed upon that more than one location on the globe contains the selective environment to produce these violent storms. Besides areas in North America, South America particularly receives a great deal of hail and tornadoes annually.”
    In comparing tornado frequency of South America to that of North America, there are similarities but the differences lie in how the tornadoes form in the two very different locations. For example, the infamous "tornado alley" gets a large source of its moisture from the Gulf of Mexico, whereas other locations pull much-needed moisture from a number of different sources.

“You bring air over the Andes and the drawback you have there is that the Andes are taller than the Rockies. They're [the Andes] not as wide so the air doesn't spend as much time over that range of mountains. The Amazon is a source of moisture and even though it's really moist, it's not nearly as good as having a body of water near it—like the Gulf of Mexico in the United States Great Plains, for example,” Harold E. Brooks said at the International Conference on Storms in Brisbane, Queensland, Australia.
    Under tornado myths: “some people believe that tornadoes only occur in North America…or that some areas are protected from tornadoes by rivers, mountains, valleys, tall buildings or other geographical or man-made features; the truth is that tornadoes can occur almost anywhere at any time if the conditions are right. Some geographic areas are simply more prone to these conditions than others.”
(See the next post, ”Answering a Reader – Part XIII,” for more information on David Mckane’s model around the Great Lakes of his Land of Promise and our responses to his comments on our blog)