Significant Tornado Events

[HAwkmoon]

Part 2 of Gorham.


Southern end of town.


Debarked and denuded tree and the 18 room Boulting Rooming House.


On the left is what was once a two-story brick business. To the right and continuing down that street all the other businesses, shops and homes were leveled.

To the right is the Crain home where one was killed and blown onto the tracks. South is the Post Office, and further south are businesses. On the other side is the badly damaged MOPAC Station.


The wrecked MOPAC station.


The Coal Chute completely razed. 18 Boxcars in the core along the railroad were destroyed along with some buildings, and even the railtracks were ripped up. Below is a crushed car from that area.




Complete destruction in Gorham and many debarked trees.

A view similar to image 3 in part 1, that shows the debarked Hickory Tree and devastation across the RR.

Damage path in Gorham. Red is devastating (F4-F5 level), green is severe, (F2-F3), yellow is moderate (F0-F1).

 

[Aaron Rider]

I know I'm flooding the thread with Palm Sunday (sorry), but here's some more stuff from the "F1" in Monroe, WI:

And from the Watertown, WI "F2" as well:

Again, I'm far from an expert, but I feel fairly confident in saying the official ratings for Palm Sunday are.. not great.

Hey Loco, I don't think we ever did get your opinion as to your "personal" F5s from Palm Sunday.

Well, besides Sunnyside and Pittsfield, which are in the "so obvious it hurts" category.

 

[AJS]

Also, I've been (very slowly) working on an article on the Ruskin Heights outbreak so I figured I'd share a few preliminary things. Here's the full damage path with all of the fatalities plotted, and a closeup of the area between Martin City and Raytown where most of the deaths occurred:

The actual path was certainly wider in some areas, but I tend to err on the conservative side. Anyway, here's the Concordia, KS F4. The path plotted here is almost exactly 54 miles; Grazulis had the tornado dissipating 3mi NE of Morrowville, but there's continuous damage going several miles further, and a local sheriff reported watching the tornado follow him up the highway and cross in front of him near the end of the path here. Possible it may have been a tornado family, but there's no place I can definitively pinpoint a break.

The Harris-Rush City, MN F4 gets almost entirely overshadowed for obvious reasons, but its narrow core was pretty violent. The path here is about 10.4 miles with a max width of just under a quarter-mile, but the most intense damage may have only been like 50-100 yards:

I was a bit surprised to learn there were apparently multiple photos taken of this tornado, but I've only been able to find one so far:

The Fremont-Van Buren F4 path isn't finalized yet but it's roughly accurate and all seven deaths are plotted. Length is ~24.8 miles:

The Desloge, MO F3 (which I just realized I forgot to mark two of the deaths) with a path of ~30.5 miles. Not 100% certain the last couple of miles are actually tornado damage though, still working on that:

The Brownbranch-Squires, MO F2 (rated F3 by Grazulis, which is much more appropriate IMO). The path here is 33 miles:

There was a fairly significant tornado family in SE Nebraska covering a combined 74 miles, the last of which was photographed by multiple people in and around Lincoln:

Hell yeah man. The Ruskin Heights F5 is one of my favorite tornadoes of all time! Cannot wait to see the published product!

 

[DanLarsen34]

A few days to perhaps consider:

5/19/10 (30% sigtor, max rating was EF1)
4/27/11 (the northern mod risk in TN/KY/IN/OH only)
4/27/14 (30% sigtor resulted in a single EF5 and nothing else before the high risk was discontinued. Only 18 tornadoes overall)
12/23/15 (major outbreak in Alabama expected, Alabama basically got nothing at all though a likely EF5 did hit Holly Springs on this day)
4/2/17 (30% sigtor, max rating was EF2)
4/5/17 (30% sigtor, basically the exact same result as 4/2/17)
5/18/17 (30% sigtor, rain basically snuffed out the entire High Risk area just as the favorable conditions arrived)
3/17/21 (45% sigtor, only a few EF2s resulted - this was brought up by CheeselandSkies)

And before 2010 (note: not all were High Risks, but most were):

5/2/99 (major outbreak expected, only a few tornadoes happened, then Bridge Creek happened the next day)
6/5/99 (High Risk, highest rating was F1)
12/23/02 (even Wikipedia calls this a bu$t!)
4/11/05 (SPC basically predicted Super Tuesday 2008 3 years early, 3 F0s formed)
4/6/06 (I think I recall this being mentioned as an example of a potent setup busting on Stormtrack)
4/7/06 (the 60% sigtor day, though it can be argued it verified from a numbers standpoint, just not a violent tornadoes standpoint)
4/13/07 (DFW high risk, only a few weak tornadoes confirmed)
4/24/07 (literally none of the tornadoes happened in the High Risk)
6/5/08 (30% tornado risk completely killed by blowoff, one chaser apparently called it the bu$t of the century)
4/26/09 (spawned the Roll tornado and very little else)

I'll likely add more later

Seeing the 12/23/2015 event on this list reminded me of another event that would qualify: the Christmas Day 2012 event.

I know there were some strong tornadoes elsewhere that day, but the only thing I remember from it was the Mobile tornado and thinking we just saw a violent tornado impact a major city on live TV.

 

[sripey]

View attachment 39919
Got a bit bored at home today sooooo….
Made this

No offense, but maybe start a new thread for this. I'd hate for this valuable thread to get cluttered with submitted tornado drawings.

Talkweather seems to be slowly morphing into r/tornado and I personally don't think that's a good thing.

 

[AJS]

No offense, but maybe start a new thread for this. I'd hate for this valuable thread to get cluttered with submitted tornado drawings.

Talkweather seems to be slowly morphing into r/tornado and I personally don't think that's a good thing.

No, I completely get it. I’ll go ahead and make a new thread for it later. I actually appreciate you telling me that, because I forgot what this site turned into the other day.

 

[locomusic01]

Any imagery from Loyal Valley 1999? I've heard some incredible things that I'm admittedly a little skeptical of (such as a foundation apparently being "gone"), but I haven't seen any imagery of the damage from it. From what I have heard it sounds like one of those super slow-moving Plains grinders.

Multiple people who surveyed both events have compared Loyal Valley to Jarrell, and you can certainly see why. Thankfully Loyal Valley didn't hit anything like Double Creek Estates, but what it did hit, it pretty much obliterated. Multiple trucks and tractors were thrown between 1/4 and 3/4 mile, cows were mutilated in Jarrell-esque fashion, a 720-foot stretch of FM 152 was peeled up, mesquite trees were destroyed and/or uprooted and thrown, ground scouring was extreme, etc.

 

[locomusic01]

Two others that wouldn't fit in the first post:

It also left a pretty impressive scar on satellite, even two months later:

As did the tornado to its south near Harper btw (which appears to have been drunk):

 

[locomusic01]

Hey Loco, I don't think we ever did get your opinion as to your "personal" F5s from Palm Sunday.

Well, besides Sunnyside and Pittsfield, which are in the "so obvious it hurts" category.

Sunnyside and Pittsfield are definitely the no-doubters, and I'd probably add Coldwater Lake #1 (J-4 if you go by Fujita's classification) to that category too. In my mind, the Sheridan, Greentown, Toledo and Rainbow Lake tornadoes also belong in their own little group. To be perfectly honest, I'm not sure I can discriminate between them except to say that they're just a notch below the first group. You could definitely make a case for any of them (and I'd argue all likely reached F5 intensity at some point), but they're not quite as clear-cut. If I had to choose, I'd say I'm most confident in Sheridan based on some of the damage around the Curryville subdivision.

 

[Aaron Rider]

Multiple people who surveyed both events have compared Loyal Valley to Jarrell, and you can certainly see why. Thankfully Loyal Valley didn't hit anything like Double Creek Estates, but what it did hit, it pretty much obliterated. Multiple trucks and tractors were thrown between 1/4 and 3/4 mile, cows were mutilated in Jarrell-esque fashion, a 720-foot stretch of FM 152 was peeled up, mesquite trees were destroyed and/or uprooted and thrown, ground scouring was extreme, etc.

If memory serves me right, a gentleman was killed when a piece of wood penetrated both his garage and the car in which he was sitting

 

[Ivanthetornadoenthusiast]

Sunnyside and Pittsfield are definitely the no-doubters, and I'd probably add Coldwater Lake #1 (J-4 if you go by Fujita's classification) to that category too. In my mind, the Sheridan, Greentown, Toledo and Rainbow Lake tornadoes also belong in their own little group. To be perfectly honest, I'm not sure I can discriminate between them except to say that they're just a notch below the first group. You could definitely make a case for any of them (and I'd argue all likely reached F5 intensity at some point), but they're not quite as clear-cut. If I had to choose, I'd say I'm most confident in Sheridan based on some of the damage around the Curryville subdivision.

Any photos of the Curryville Subdivision?

 

[locomusic01]

If memory serves me right, a gentleman was killed when a piece of wood penetrated both his garage and the car in which he was sitting

Yeah, the car you see in some of the photos is the one in which he was killed. He was in the car with his family and the garage was blown away and the car blasted by debris. Somehow everyone else in the car survived.

Any photos of the Curryville Subdivision?

I need to look for some better ones; don't have much right now.

The two men in this photo are brothers; a third brother was killed here along with his wife.

Hard to make out much here, but a porch slab is basically all that's left of a house where seven members of one family were staying when the tornado hit. Sadly, only one of them survived.

Another house nearby:

Two other people were killed here:

Don't remember the context of this one, but it's from the same general area. I think it's across the road from where a couple of the homes above were.

 

[andyhb]

I'll make the controversial claim that there may have been more tornadoes that deserved F5 ratings in the Palm Sunday '65 outbreak than the 4/3/1974 Super Outbreak.

 

[AJS]

I'll make the controversial claim that there may have been more tornadoes that deserved F5 ratings in the Palm Sunday '65 outbreak than the 4/3/1974 Super Outbreak.

The only tornadoes from the 1974 super outbreak that I feel like deserved their F5 rating were Brandenburg, KY and Guin, AL. I do believe Tanner 1 was also extremely violent and probably was worthy of it’s F5 rating based on the damage reports i’ve heard from it, but I haven’t seen much images of the damage it caused.

 

[SilentShadow87]

I might just be late to the party here, but I've never seen this photo before and it's easily the best picture of the Perryville tornado I've seen.

The Perryville tornado isn't exactly well-known, but it was easily the most violent of 2017 imo. The official DIs might have "only" given it a mid-range EF4 rating, but some of the damage definitely looks to be fairly close to EF5 strength. This house was well-built and anchored, and was given a 170 mph rating because of secondary contextual evidence. Personally (within the bounds of the EF scale and ignoring the fact that it almost certainly underestimates wind speeds in general), I would have given it 190.

 

[AJS]

I might just be late to the party here, but I've never seen this photo before and it's easily the best picture of the Perryville tornado I've seen.
View attachment 39972
The Perryville tornado isn't exactly well-known, but it was easily the most violent of 2017 imo. The official DIs might have "only" given it a mid-range EF4 rating, but some of the damage definitely looks to be fairly close to EF5 strength. This house was well-built and anchored, and was given a 170 mph rating because of secondary contextual evidence. Personally (within the bounds of the EF scale and ignoring the fact that it almost certainly underestimates wind speeds in general), I would have given it 190.
View attachment 39976

Wow, I honestly didn’t know there were pictures of this beast. What a great find!

2017 was an interesting year for tornadoes and if you ask me, I actually think that the Canton, TX EF3 was perhaps the most memorable tornado of that year. The NWS in Fort Worth slapped it with an EF3 rating, but after doing some digging, I came across some damage photos on this thread that showed a lot of homes completely swept away with some fairly significant contextual damage. The absolutely terrifying appearance of it also stood out.

 

[SilentShadow87]

I'll make the controversial claim that there may have been more tornadoes that deserved F5 ratings in the Palm Sunday '65 outbreak than the 4/3/1974 Super Outbreak.

I agree completely actually. Brandenburg, Tanner 1 and Guin were the only tornadoes that caused F5 damage in the 74 Super Outbreak, from what I've seen.

F5 ratings were handed out way too liberally in general in the 70s. Officially there were 14, but only 5 or 6 seem to have actually produced F5 damage (Lubbock is borderline imho, the house damage was not F5 intensity but the tossing of multi-ton oil and fertilizer tanks is a good indicator of extreme strength).

 

[Ivanthetornadoenthusiast]

Don't remember the context of this one, but it's from the same general area. I think it's across the road from where a couple of the homes above were.

Some sort of windrowing i guess

 

[SilentShadow87]

Wow, I honestly didn’t know there were pictures of this beast. What a great find!

2017 was an interesting year for tornadoes and if you ask me, I actually think that the Canton, TX EF3 was perhaps the most memorable tornado of that year. The NWS in Fort Worth slapped it with an EF3 rating, but after doing some digging, I came across some damage photos on this thread that showed a lot of homes completely swept away with some fairly significant contextual damage. The absolutely terrifying appearance of it also stood out.

2017 and 2018 were slow years when it comes to major outbreaks, but there were a few individual tornadoes that stood out for sure. Canton was definitely one of them. Pecos Hank called it the scariest tornado he'd ever seen. I agree it was probably violent.

2018 especially was a really unusual season and definitely the weirdest since I've started watching severe weather. It peaked from June to early August, and most of the EF3+ tornadoes were in Wyoming, Montana, and western Manitoba. There was only one officially rated violent tornado (Alonsa, MB), but I think at least 2-3 others (Camp Crook, Douglas, and possibly Laramie, WY) should have been rated EF4. A few others were probably violent as well and just didn't hit anything notable.

 

[A Guy]

It also left a pretty impressive scar on satellite, even two months later:

As did the tornado to its south near Harper btw (which appears to have been drunk):

What site are you getting the satellite images on? The one I used to get them from is no longer free access so I've looking for an adequate alternative.