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Shameless self-promotion, but I typed up a short Twitter thread the other day detailing the McLean/Kellerville/Allison TX supercell on 6/8/1995 in the Panhandle (same day as Pampa). This storm was a monster.



Have also found some information on a prolific day in N KS and S NE on 5/10/1985, which, by multiple accounts, was a banner chase day featuring a couple of cyclic supercells producing multiple large, long-lived, and strong/violent tornadoes.

Two-pronged chase account from David Hoadley and Dr. Erik Rasmussen: https://stormtrack.org/weather-libr...ellis-stockton-phillipsburg-kansas-tornadoes/

Some pictures of the Agra and Ellis KS tornadoes and from this event via Storm Data.
View attachment 3070View attachment 3069View attachment 3071View attachment 3072
View attachment 3073

Significant damage NE of Agra from the aforementioned tornado.
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The setup via PSU NARR.
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You know, speaking of that (Tampa 1995) outbreak, I've never seen a photo of the house that was "So obliterated that the survey teams likely missed it."
 
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You know, speaking of that (Tampa 1995) outbreak, I've never seen a photo of the house that was "So obliterated that the survey teams likely missed it."

Was Kellerville the one with that weird wobbly path? That thing is really interesting to me, and it's hard to find much information on it.
 
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Xenia tornado of the 1974 Super Outbreak. (Note: This tornado had max winds of 300 mph.)

Xenia was definitely violent, but it was far from being the most powerful tornado of that day. Brandenburg, Kentucky and the Guin, AL tornado were probably the most intense of that day but didn't get as much publicity as they didn't impact a highly-populated area, like Xenia did. Still a violent tornado, don't get me wrong.
 
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Xenia was definitely violent, but it was far from being the most powerful tornado of that day. Brandenburg, Kentucky and the Guin, AL tornado were probably the most intense of that day but didn't get as much publicity as they didn't impact a highly-populated area, like Xenia did. Still a violent tornado, don't get me wrong.
I might as well put my money where my mouth is.
So, this blog here has some B&W pictures of damage done by the Guin tornado, yeah, this definitely looks pretty intense in parts, quite a bit of debris granulation:

 

pohnpei

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I collete my Top10 most severe debarks from no EF5 tornados(offical) in last 10 years(2011-now),I may missed some of them due to lack of information and some of them were very close even acutally should be include in this list, such as Vilonia EF4 2014, Pilger West EF4 2014, Alpena SD EF4 2014, Rochelle EF4 2015, Canton EF3 2017, Beauregard AL 2019). Also not include the recent Bassfield MS EF4 which obviously belong to this list.
Goldsby OK EF4 2011(There was several other places much sereve than this.)
1309197263-IMG_5321.JPG

Chickasha OK EF4 2011(tree damage behind this EF5 candidate house was insane)
20110525_162653_DSC_0307.JPG

Canton lake OK EF3 2011
QQ截图20200505102300.jpg

2011 Tuscaloosa AL EF4(I also heard Enterprise EF4 that day debarked lots of trees but I can't find the image.)
QQ截图20200505102348.jpg

2014 Louisville MS EF4
23 EF3.jpg

2014 Pilger East NE EF4(close to both EF4 tornado but mainly affected by the East one)
source:

Also can find many photos from damage viewer
QQ图片20200505004722.jpg

Stanton NE EF4
stanton EF3 2.jpg

2015 Cisco EF3
QQ图片20191029180235.jpg

2015 Holly springs EF4(photo taken several years after, hard to find the obriginal sources.)
DY2TKjbW4AEDHBm.jpg

2016 Chapman KS EF4(form Nick Slone's footage:)
QQ截图20200505102111.jpg
 
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buckeye05

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Xenia tornado of the 1974 Super Outbreak. (Note: This tornado had max winds of 300 mph.)
Ah the Xenia tornado, I have a lot to say about this one, mainly that it would have been rated EF4 today. While a lot of homes were swept away in town, they were rather small and not anchor bolted to their foundations. I've dug up as many damage photos as I can from this one, and have yet to find any extreme debarking of trees, no ground scouring to speak of, and no remarkable vehicle damage. The 300 MPH estimate was from Ted Fujita himself, but as inclined as I am to take everything he said as being accurate, this was still the early days of rating tornadoes, and before engineering/structural integrity was a major factor in determining the ratings of tornadoes. With all this considered, I can say with a high degree of confidence that this tornado was not nearly as violent as its reputation suggests.

Out of all the 1974 Super Outbreak tornadoes, evidence suggests that the Brandenburg, KY tornado was the most violent one that day, and would still be an EF5 candidate by today's standards.
 
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Brice

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Yeah, today it would've most likely not been rated on what it was and about the wind speeds, I also take everything he says accurately. The tornado according to Ted, had 300 MPH but it wasn't hitting anything at peak strength.
 

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You know, speaking of that (Tampa 1995) outbreak, I've never seen a photo of the house that was "So obliterated that the survey teams likely missed it."
Probably because from what I gathered, this didn't happen. Unfortunately, this "fact" was likely a result of a very odd, scatterbrained poster who used to post on multiple weather forums about tornado events, however he was always confused about specific information from tornadoes, would incorrectly interpret or over-analyze damage photos, would mis-attribute certain incidents of damage to the wrong tornadoes. After lots of digging around, I found that this rumor originated from a StormTrack forums post by meteorologist Tony Liza in the early 2000's. The tornado that allegedly produced the damage in question was an F4 that occurred near Arkansas City, KS on April 26, 1991 (the Andover outbreak). NOT the 1995 outbreak.This poster spread around so much misinformation, and it's unfortunate, but thankfully he has pretty much disappeared from weather forums in recent years.

Oh and the same guy started a still-persistent rumor that the Northwood, ND tornado of 2007 should have been rated EF5 based on the "fact" that the tornado swept away an anchor-bolted home. The structure in question actually turned out to be a metal outbuilding at a small airport. Also the Clinton, AR tornado of 2008 apparently should have been rated EF5 too based on "extreme ground scouring", which upon analysis of the photos turned out to be mud puddles/water damage to grass. Sheesh...
 
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buckeye05

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Yeah, today it would've most likely not been rated on what it was and about the wind speeds, I also take everything he says accurately. The tornado according to Ted, had 300 MPH but it wasn't hitting anything at peak strength.
This is probably blasphemy to some, but I don't. Fujita was known to assign very high ratings based on things such as debris patterns in fields or spriral/cycloidal markings in crops. These days, this is pretty much known to be pseudo-science. I wouldn't be surprised if something like this was the basis for his 300 MPH estimate in Xenia.

He also rated the 1990 Goessel, KS tornado as a 300 MPH F5 based on the nature of spiral markings in crops. I find his basis for the rating of the F5 Plainfield, IL tornado to be questionable as well (corn scouring).
 
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This is probably blasphemy to some, but I don't. Fujita was known to assign very high ratings based on things such as debris patterns in fields or spriral/cycloidal markings in crops. These days, this is pretty much known to be pseudo-science. I wouldn't be surprised if something like this was the basis for his 300 MPH estimate in Xenia.

He also rated the 1990 Goessel, KS tornado as a 300 MPH F5 based on the nature of spiral markings in crops. I find his basis for the rating of the F5 Plainfield, IL tornado to be questionable as well (corn scouring).
The Hesston tornado was F5 but I am not sure about the Gossell tornado. However, I know tornadoes in the past were quite inflated but I feel like other things(contextual)should be used in damage surveys to determine the rating besides just well-built, well-anchored houses.
 

Brice

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I wouldn't be surprised if something like this was the basis for his 300 MPH estimate.


I wouldn't either because like you said, we were still in the early stages of rating tornadoes and once the 1974 super outbreak came along, the F scale got put to a real test. You also have to believe that there were certainly some miscalculations of something given the magnitude of the outbreak. And one last thing to mention is how it was very hard how to calculate a tornado wind speeds back then, especially when you had 30 violent tornadoes to be determined. Also when you had a couple of F4's that could've been upgraded to F5 or a couple of F5s downgraded to F4.
 
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buckeye05

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The Hesston tornado was F5 but I am not sure about the Gossell tornado. However, I know tornadoes in the past were quite inflated but I feel like other things(contextual)should be used in damage surveys to determine the rating besides just well-built, well-anchored houses.
Agreed, but cycloidal markings definitely isn't one of them
 
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Agreed, but cycloidal markings definitely isn't one of them
Gossell as you say should probably have been rated F3 or F4. Cycloidal marks are probably able to be done by an EF2 or EF3. Now maybe if these cycloidal marks are deep and pronounced it might be EF4 but at the most.
 
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Probably because from what I gathered, this didn't happen. Unfortunately, this "fact" was likely a result of a very odd, scatterbrained poster who used to post on multiple weather forums about tornado events, however he was always confused about specific information from tornadoes, would incorrectly interpret or over-analyze damage photos, would mis-attribute certain incidents of damage to the wrong tornadoes. After lots of digging around, I found that this rumor originated from a StormTrack forums post by meteorologist Tony Liza in the early 2000's. The tornado that allegedly produced the damage in question was an F4 that occurred near Arkansas City, KS on April 26, 1991 (the Andover outbreak). NOT the 1995 outbreak.This poster spread around so much misinformation, and it's unfortunate, but thankfully he has pretty much disappeared from weather forums in recent years.

Oh and the same guy started a still-persistent rumor that the Northwood, ND tornado of 2007 should have been rated EF5 based on the "fact" that the tornado swept away an anchor-bolted home. The structure in question actually turned out to be a metal outbuilding at a small airport. Also the Clinton, AR tornado of 2008 apparently should have been rated EF5 too based on "extreme ground scouring", which upon analysis of the photos turned out to be mud puddles/water damage to grass. Sheesh...
Pretty sure this was the same user who posted something about how the "Forgotten F5" tornado of Lawrence County, TN in 1998 threw a car 20 miles? Yeah, that guy was something else.
 
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So, this is pretty incredible. A 3-part synced series of the Andover tornado from beginning to end. Part 2 is the most notable, as the transition of this thing from single-vortex stovepipe to multi-vortex wedge was caught on tape at multiple vantage points at the same time.

1.
2.
3.

It's really hard to find damage pics of the worst-hit areas of Andover, perhaps I can track down more photographs of F5 damage done by it another time.

While on the topic of Andover, it'd be real nice if anyone would know of any sources of damage pics caused by the Red Rock storm. That thing reminds me ALOT of El Reno 2011, as it basically had the same path length and width of that tornado.
 
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Xenia was definitely violent, but it was far from being the most powerful tornado of that day. Brandenburg, Kentucky and the Guin, AL tornado were probably the most intense of that day but didn't get as much publicity as they didn't impact a highly-populated area, like Xenia did. Still a violent tornado, don't get me wrong.
The first Tanner, AL tornado was also extremely violent and probably on the same level as Brandenburg and Guin (or at least very close to it). There was intense debris granulation, deep ground scouring, a pump lifted out of a well, and of course, the bathtub embedded in the ground which I just recently found a photo of.
 
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Internet archives to the rescue! Some articles on NOAA on the 40th anniversary of this event:

1. https://web.archive.org/web/2014033...noaa.gov/hun/?n=madisonal_grounddam_1974_aniv

2. https://web.archive.org/web/2016030....gov/hun/?n=interviews_videos_04031974#videos

3. https://web.archive.org/web/2014033...noaa.gov/hun/?n=madisonal_grounddam_1974_aniv

I highly recommend link 2, as it takes you to a PDF file of "A Night to Remember" by Charles Jordan which has a TON of information this outbreak I haven't been able to find anywhere else.
 
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