Significant Tornado Events

[TH2002]

Something that keeps nagging at me is the idea that the forward motion of a tornado matters, at least in whats relevant to a rating.
We have countless videos showing that tornadoes basically do all of their damage within the first second of even touching a structure. At best being slow moving just mulches the dirt more and maybe granulates the debris a bit.

Edit: I never got an answer to this question when I asked it back in April, but I have been feverishly hunting down the source of this Minneola KS EF3 photo (2019) since basically the same day. I only ever saw it once, during the event, and since then I have never been able to find the original source. Which sucks because its one of my favorite tornado photos (the colors and mood are exquisite); of one of my favorite tornadoes.
Any ideas?

View attachment 22676

I don't think "slow forward speed" is a valid reason to downgrade a tornado's rating at all. In Jarrell, that NIST study concluded the homes in Double Creek were impacted by tornadic winds for upwards of three minutes, but keep in mind that tornadoes are measured by the width of their EF0 damage contour. That means the homes were impacted by winds of at least 65 mph (40 mph on the old scale), for three minutes. It doesn't mean the homes were impacted by F5 winds for that amount of time.
In all cases I'm aware of, the most extreme damage a tornado causes is by its 'inner core' and/or subvortices. In those cases, the most extreme winds responsible for EF4/5 damage only last a couple seconds, as can be observed in the video of Joplin taken at the Fastrip gas station.

As for your photo, unfortunately neither Google or Yandex image search could find anything. I suspect it came from a social media post that has since been deleted.

 

[Juliett Bravo Kilo]

Since we're on the topic of 5/24/11 again I figure I might as well mention the Etna–Denning–Harmony, Arkansas EF4 that occurred in the midnight/early morning hours of May 24-25, 2011. It's overshadowed by the outbreak in Oklahoma and I haven't been able to find any damage pics from it but it was definitely a violent storm from what it's radar signature said. If anyone has any impressive damage pics from it, share them here.

 

[TH2002]

Since we're on the topic of 5/24/11 again I figure I might as well mention the Etna–Denning–Harmony, Arkansas EF4 that occurred in the midnight/early morning hours of May 24-25, 2011. It's overshadowed by the outbreak in Oklahoma and I haven't been able to find any damage pics from it but it was definitely a violent storm from what it's radar signature said. If anyone has any impressive damage pics from it, share them here.

@pohnpei posted some damage pics from this one a while back, and yep, it was definitely violent: https://talkweather.com/threads/significant-tornado-events.1276/page-387#post-77396

Also, completely unrelated but what band is the subject of your latest profile pic?

 

[Juliett Bravo Kilo]

@pohnpei posted some damage pics from this one a while back, and yep, it was definitely violent: https://talkweather.com/threads/significant-tornado-events.1276/page-387#post-77396

Also, completely unrelated but what band is the subject of your latest profile pic?

Awesome, somehow I didn't pay attention to these the first time around?
Latest band pic is from Bad Brains, another classic hardcore punk act from the late 70s'-early 80's period.

 

[TH2002]

I think Guangzhou tornado from many years back (around 1873 or something) had some damage photos

I found the event you're thinking of and it was in 1878, so not quite the earliest tornado damage photos known. Probably the earliest known tornado damage photos from China, at least.

Awesome, somehow I didn't pay attention to these the first time around?
Latest band pic is from Bad Brains, another classic hardcore punk act from the late 70s'-early 80's period.

Pro-tip: the search feature comes in handy
Well, since you're a known punk enthusiast I would have figured that part out - just didn't know what band exactly. Curiosity settled.

 

[TH2002]

Found another possible date for the earliest photo of tornado damage: June 11, 1872 in Salisbury, MO. However, the Tornado Archive brought up no tornadoes for this date (or any near Salisbury until 1959 for that matter), I don't have access to Grazulis' 1680-1991 book, and I can't find any other references to this storm beyond the City of Salisbury's website. Whatever the case - there's definitely some kind of storm damage here, particularly in the background, but who knows if it was a true tornado or not? As of now the Lewistown photo still stands as the earliest verifiable photo of tornado damage, but we shall see...

 

[Juliett Bravo Kilo]

Found another possible date for the earliest photo of tornado damage: June 11, 1872 in Salisbury, MO. However, the Tornado Archive brought up no tornadoes for this date (or any near Salisbury until 1959 for that matter), I don't have access to Grazulis' 1680-1991 book, and I can't find any other references to this storm beyond the City of Salisbury's website. Whatever the case - there's definitely some kind of storm damage here, particularly in the background, but who knows if it was a true tornado or not? As of now the Lewistown photo still stands as the earliest verifiable photo of tornado damage, but we shall see...

Wondering if this is just damage from a brief downburst as aside from the chimney & some possible damage in the background behind the fence it doesn't seem like much happened here.

 

[Juliett Bravo Kilo]

These photos have now fully convinced me that El Reno 2011 is on the same level as Bridge Creek in terms of intensity. Insane damage photos there. Imagine if this thing had received an EF4 rating if it occurred just a few years later.

Those photos are from the Piedmont area, near I-40. The red SUV being thrown half a mile happened in this area:

Significant Tornado Events

This may have been discussed already somewhere in these 150 thread pages, but I'm wondering what tornado of the modern era (when ratings were carefully done) had the longest path between verified F5 or EF-5 damage markers? The Hackleburg-Phil Campbell tornado produced EF-5 damage along a 27.6...

talkweather.com

 

[TH2002]

Wondering if this is just damage from a brief downburst as aside from the chimney & some possible damage in the background behind the fence it doesn't seem like much happened here.

That's what I'm thinking as well; note how the damage appears to be quite weak (since I can't imagine any of those structures were well built) and the damage to the roofs in the foreground appear to be "punched in" holes as opposed to the winds having any kind of vertical component. Still, I just wish there was a way of knowing for 100% sure...

 

[TH2002]

Since today is December 23 it's time for another Holly Springs anniversary post...
TBH, not much to add by now, but I may write a detailed post exploring the tornado's entire path at some point.
View of the tornado itself from the Bank of Holly Springs on the southern edge of town. The Motorsports Park is located about a half mile due south of this location:



A 7-year old boy was killed in this vehicle after it was hurled from MS-7 and wrapped around these trees. Based on imagery I recently found from this area, most of the homes along MS-7 seem to have sustained EF2-EF3 damage so the tornado seems to have intensified very rapidly just before entering the Motorsports Park.

Another video, taken from Walnut, MS. Keep in mind the tornado had already weakened here...

 

[Tanner]

Since today is December 23 it's time for another Holly Springs anniversary post...
TBH, not much to add by now, but I may write a detailed post exploring the tornado's entire path at some point.
View of the tornado itself from the Bank of Holly Springs on the southern edge of town. The Motorsports Park is located about a half mile due south of this location:


View attachment 22691
A 7-year old boy was killed in this vehicle after it was hurled from MS-7 and wrapped around these trees. Based on imagery I recently found from this area, most of the homes along MS-7 seem to have sustained EF2-EF3 damage so the tornado seems to have intensified very rapidly just before entering the Motorsports Park.

Another video, taken from Walnut, MS. Keep in mind the tornado had already weakened here...

That last video is very Mayflower-eqsue. Just thought I would arbitrarily make that comparison.

 

[Austin Dawg]

I'm going to share what I found as I was going through YouTube watching videos. I found this fascinating collection of tornado footage that I think you guys might like.

 

[akt1985]

Hard to believe the Superoutbreak of 1974 was half a century ago this year.

 

[Juliett Bravo Kilo]

Hard to believe the Superoutbreak of 1974 was half a century ago this year.

Technically not until April 3, but yes. I'm looking forward to TornadoTalk's articles on that are supposed to come out later this year.

 

[TH2002]

Wasn't sure if this is "on-topic" enough for this thread but since I'm conveniently in the middle of dealing with family drama half an hour before the New Year I'm just gonna throw this out there: Is anyone else sick and tired of crap from the "hypothetical tornadoes wiki" clogging up their search results whenever trying to do research on actual tornadoes? I kinda just ignored it at first but it's becoming more and more difficult to do so, especially since these ridiculously unrealistic "hypothetical tornadoes" are in every freaking country now. Doing research on international tornadoes in particular is often already difficult enough due to the language barrier, and becomes even harder when half the results you get now pertain to the "2062 German Robloxia tornado outbreak" with 30 F5's, two F6's and an F7 rather than results pertaining to the actual tornado you're trying to do research on. Anyhow, rant over lol.

 

[Juliett Bravo Kilo]

Wasn't sure if this is "on-topic" enough for this thread but since I'm conveniently in the middle of dealing with family drama half an hour before the New Year I'm just gonna throw this out there: Is anyone else sick and tired of crap from the "hypothetical tornadoes wiki" clogging up their search results whenever trying to do research on actual tornadoes? I kinda just ignored it at first but it's becoming more and more difficult to do so, especially since these ridiculously unrealistic "hypothetical tornadoes" are in every freaking country now. Doing research on international tornadoes in particular is often already difficult enough due to the language barrier, and becomes even harder when half the results you get now pertain to the "2062 German Robloxia tornado outbreak" with 30 F5's, two F6's and an F7 rather than results pertaining to the actual tornado you're trying to do research on. Anyhow, rant over lol.

Lol that site is hilarious, they had a bit about the "Big One" in 2047 which was over a thousand miles wide lol.

 

[locomusic01]

So I just got a message from Peter Felknor, the guy who wrote the first book about the Tri-State Tornado back in the early '90s. Remember how we'd speculated before that someone, somewhere could have a picture of the tornado just collecting dust in their attic or something? Well, good news and bad news..

I think it was in 2003 that I heard from a lady named Iris, who--bizarrely--lived in my hometown of Crestwood, MO, which I had left as a middle schooler in 1965. We had never met and she didn't know anyone from my family, but she had read my book and wanted to tell me that her father had taken a photo of the cloud with his new camera as the tornado passed over their farmland on the Illinois side of the Wabash River. Of course l was quite excited and told her that she had "the Holy Grail." She said the photo was with some old family effects in her basement and she would dig it up for me.

Well, as luck would have it, nature had (as usual) other things in mind. Iris's basement flooded during the torrential rains that afflicted the Mississippi Valley that year, and the photograph was completely destroyed. So the "Holy Grail" has yet to be found.

 

[Juliett Bravo Kilo]

So I just got a message from Peter Felknor, the guy who wrote the first book about the Tri-State Tornado back in the early '90s. Remember how we'd speculated before that someone, somewhere could have a picture of the tornado just collecting dust in their attic or something? Well, good news and bad news..

Of course. Unless someone made a copy of it or it's in a state archive somewhere I guess we're out of luck.
That said, next year will be the 100th anniversary of the tornado, maybe TornadoTalk will unearth a photograph of it by then. If they can't nobody can lol.
Years ago I heard of a photograph on an online forum in an obscure PDF file of of the "Cloud" of the Tri-State's beginning in Missouri, it was described as a narrow stovepipe so this was likely the tornado that preceded it before the supercell cycled and dropped the main wedge in the Ozark mountains. So there may also be a photograph of the first tornado in the Tri-State family out there too, just gotta dig it up.
It really makes you wonder how many photographs of tornadoes or tornado damiage from stuff like 1884 Enigma, May 1896, Dixie 1932 Tupelo-Gainesville 1936, Flint-Beecher 1953 and dozens of others in 4/3/74 and the like are either in someone's attic or locked away in state archives and forgotten about. The same could be said of tons of of historic photographs or videos of anything, really.

 

[locomusic01]

Yeah, I'm sure I've said it before but I'd give anything to have the resources to just travel around the country digging up old photos. I can only imagine how much stuff is actually out there somewhere, most of which will probably never come to light. My ultimate vision would be an online database with detailed maps, photos and survivor/victim accounts for different tornadoes, ideally with info + location markers for each whenever possible.

I need to start playing the lottery so I can hit the jackpot lol

Re: the PDF, I've seen a couple photos over the years that were purported to be the Tri-State Tornado (or one of the others in the family). Most were either another recognizable tornado or very obviously fake, but I remember a couple I was never able to identify. Not sure if I still have any of them; I'll try to remember to check after I'm done working.

 

[Juliett Bravo Kilo]

Yeah, I'm sure I've said it before but I'd give anything to have the resources to just travel around the country digging up old photos. I can only imagine how much stuff is actually out there somewhere, most of which will probably never come to light. My ultimate vision would be an online database with detailed maps, photos and survivor/victim accounts for different tornadoes, ideally with info + location markers for each whenever possible.

I need to start playing the lottery so I can hit the jackpot lol

Re: the PDF, I've seen a couple photos over the years that were purported to be the Tri-State Tornado (or one of the others in the family). Most were either another recognizable tornado or very obviously fake, but I remember a couple I was never able to identify. Not sure if I still have any of them; I'll try to remember to check after I'm done working.

I've seen a few doctored photographs of Wichita Falls 1979 purported as the Tri-State Tornado.
Concerning Tri-State, eyewitness descriptions of it make it sound like it was more or less Hackleburg/Phil Campbell in appearance for the majority of its path, which is to be expected for fast-moving, rain-wrapped early spring events.