Locomusic gave this write-up of the 1999 Loyal Valley tx tornado
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other frequently overlooked aspect to this story is that, while the evolution of the small-scale features (what I like to call a "mesoscale accident") is extremely rare and unusual, the same basic scenario has played out several other times. The most directly comparable tornado, to me, is an almost entirely unknown event that occurred on May 11, 1999. The synoptic setup for that day in Texas wasn't especially impressive, but there was tremendous instability. Another one of those mesoscale accidents led to the explosive development of a supercell over the Hill Country, which quickly took on a very deviant SE-SSE motion and just drifted along very slowly.
The tornado touched down in Mason County, near the Llano River a few miles northwest of Loyal Valley. It tore through a very rural area, traveling just seven miles over its 30-35 minute lifespan. It produced significant ground scouring over much of its path, leading one observer to remark that it looked as if the tornado had "dragged itself" across the landscape, digging up the earth as it went. There were only a couple of homes in its path and none of them directly in the core of the most intense damage (thankfully), but it completely destroyed what it did hit and was officially rated F4.
A new truck at one home was torn apart and thrown three-quarters of a mile, and hundreds of head of cattle and various horses, deer, and other animals were killed and badly mutilated. Mesquite trees - which are well-known for their ruggedness - were totally debarked and denuded, and in some cases torn out of the ground and thrown hundreds of yards. That's especially impressive because mesquite trees tend to have strong, deep root systems. Unfortunately the only photos I was able to find so far come from the May 1999 Storm Data.
Here's one of the many mesquite trees debarked and denuded. You can see lots of others in the background.
This is obviously the cover of that issue. You can see more tree damage and scouring in the background.
This is what's left of the home in which the tornado's only fatality occurred. A family of six sought shelter by driving their car into the garage (variously reported as being built from either stone or concrete); the home and garage were demolished and at least partially swept away, and the 74-year-old grandfather was killed when a 2x4 penetrated the car and impaled him. The others miraculously survived with relatively minor injuries.
And here's the hood of the truck I mentioned earlier which was thrown from near the home.
In the same general area, the tornado, which was a three-quarter mile wide multivortex wedge, scoured away more than 700 feet of asphalt from Ranch Rd 152, throwing chunks of it over a thousand yards. Here's what an Air Force meteorologist, who'd surveyed Jarrell two years earlier, had to say about the Loyal Valley tornado.
"Hecke said Tuesday night's tornado likely was an 'F-5' grade - the severest category, marked by winds of more than 260 miles an hour. 'The two homes that were destroyed, the foundations were gone. Trees were stripped of their bark, and 150 to 175 feet of pavement was stripped away' - which occurs only when windspeeds reach F-5 level."
And a TV reporter who'd also witnessed Jarrell said this.
"'I hadn't seen anything like that. I couldn't believe what it did to animals,' said Flores, who also witnessed the destruction at Jarrell. 'The subdivision in Jarrell that was hit by the tornado was wiped clean. This was wiped clean, too, but the cattle - their hides had been ripped right off of them. Some of them were missing heads, and some were caught up and entwined in barbed wire.'
'There was absolutely nothing left of it [the new pickup truck]. It looked like it had been blown up by a bomb or something. Two dead cows were lying at the foot of it ... their skin was gone. They were pink and purplish. No skin. It took the skin right off.'"