I’m not sure if I’d say it was stronger than Smithville, but comparing EF5’s is kind of futile since each caused extreme damage in their own right. But yeah, there was a Frito Lay semi-truck that was dropped in a residential area and it was pretty much unrecognizable. The only thing left was the metal frame, a few tires, and a giant Doritos sign on someone’s property. No idea where the truck originated from. Greensburg also caused significant damage to and even bent railroad tracks in one location.
I must say that I have a strong, strong feeling that the size and speed of a tornado matters heavily in how far it can throw objects. I'm not trying to discredit Greensburg at all, the 7+ mile throw is a ludicrous feat. But, intuition tells me that the insanely large size of Greensburg as well as its modest forward pace aided greatly in its ability to chuck objects as far as possible, to me it is the perfect tornado for doing this.
If a violent tornado is moving too slow, then objects can still be thrown far, but they're at the mercy of the forward translation speed of the tornado itself at that point. It can only stay in the vortex for so long before the balance between centrifugal forces and aerodynamic forces is broken, and since the tornado hasn't moved much, the throwing distance may seem smaller than expected in comparison to faster tornadoes. However, if a violent tornado is moving too quickly, then the objects may be lofted quickly, but the forces imparted upon the objects are far more volatile in their magnitude and direction and therefore I imagine it's more difficult for them to hit that steady-state of being in the air for longer simply because of that fact.
This also tracks with the faster moving (>55 mph) Dixie wedges throwing cars shorter distances than what you would expect of them to compared to slower moving Great Plains wedges i.e. Hackleburg tossing vehicles ""only"" 200 yards in the EF5 core (
Smithville and New Wren were freaks of nature in this sense to me), Bassfield tossing trucks 300 yards, Rolling Fork tossing vehicles 150+ yards, etc. despite their extreme structural and tree damage feats. To me, it just seems rarer for Southern tornadoes to loft vehicles further, or smaller objects for that matter.
It certainly
feels like the Great Plains tornadoes are more prone to doing extreme damage
to vehicles specifically than Southern tornadoes are, and this may be attributed to the fact that they typically travel at more modest forward paces. El Reno 2011 tossed a 20,000 lb oil tanker a mile and it moved at ~35 mph at most, Chickasha absolutely launched cars 600+ yards and IIRC one car over a mile, pretty sure Parkersburg also contained some ludicrous throwing feats although I can't recall it off the top of my head, and then you have Moore 2013 throwing giant tanks miles - these were all wide, most people agree that outside of El Reno 2011, Smithville and Hackleburg were probably stronger than most I listed here - yet they tended to throw objects further. I believe it may have something to do with both size and speed, and again, that may be why Greensburg was so good at launching things. Not because it was stronger per se, but probably because it was just bigger and moved a little slower than an average stronger tornado would. That probably allows objects to reach a steady-state of circulating around the tornado more easily than if it were moving very slowly or very quickly, or if it were a drillbit.
