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A lot of newspapers had the same famous photo of damage in West Frankfort in altered versions but here's the most HD one I could find
View attachment 4737

More West Frankfort
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View attachment 4738
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Planks from obliterated homes lay across the ground outside of West Frankfort
View attachment 4740
That's all that I managed to find from hours shifting through online archives of newspapers. Poor people in the path had no chance. One reason that made this tornado incredibly deadly was not only its incredible power, but the fact that it was partially obscured with low LCL heights, as shown by witnesses in Annapolis describing it as a "thick black fog cloud" with a tremendous roar, and not recognizable as an actual funnel at some points. Also, the tornado severed all telegraph communications to cities in the path so residents had no kind of warning of what was approaching until it was right there. The tornado happened to be on a trajectory where multiple large cities were in its path also, a worst-case-scenario
Here's a bunch of photos from Jackson County, Illinois:
1.jpg2.jpg3.jpg4.jpg5.jpg6.jpg7.jpg8.jpg9.jpg10.jpg
 
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I forgot the values of CAPE or wind shear that day in Texas Panhandle,but atomsphere state that day was really suitable for regional tornado outbreak even violent tornado outbreak with great instability and low level shear.According to some resources,pampa hadn't reached to the ground until a new wall cloud formed to its east.As pampa was strengthing and tearing through local industrial park,a new funnel beneath that wall cloud took shape which eventually became the hoover tornado.Pampa and Hoover "coexisted"about six mintues and then pampa slowed down,circled around hoover and dissipated according to Chuck Doswell.
Out of curiosity, what caused Pampa to become stationary for several minutes as it was over the industrial park?
 

DDM

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Someone in a separate chat managed to find the long-lost footage from KWTX of the Jarrell tornado evolving from its initial rope stage to a full blown violent wedge and needless to say I'm trying to get him to upload it because it was incredible. Here's the reel of screenshots from it.
Wow. I'd be very interested in seeing that. That's like the holy grail of tornado footage.
 

Marshal79344

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Out of curiosity, what caused Pampa to become stationary for several minutes as it was over the industrial park?
I looked at GR Level 3 data for the event, and the supercell responsible for the Pampa tornado seemed to be along a "boundary" of some sort, extremely similar to the Jarrell setup of 97. That may play a part in the tornado's erratic movement.
 

Marshal79344

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I looked at GR Level 3 data for the event, and the supercell responsible for the Pampa tornado seemed to be along a "boundary" of some sort, extremely similar to the Jarrell setup of 97. That may play a part in the tornado's erratic movement.
The supercells that produced the Allison and Kellerville tornadoes were right-moving supercells in the open warm sector, not under the influence of a boundary.
 

Robinson lee

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The supercells that produced the Allison and Kellerville tornadoes were right-moving supercells in the open warm sector, not under the influence of a boundary.
Some studies suggest that when the storm is on a certain boundary and the dominant wind is weak, the boundary will guide the direction of the storm. I think it's probably water vapor and upwelling that sustained the storm. In addition, can you provide the GR3 data of Pampa, which I am very curious about? I'm curious about that
 

andyhb

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Wow. I'd be very interested in seeing that. That's like the holy grail of tornado footage.
The problem is KWTX still has copyright over it so it can't get uploaded. It would really just help if they would upload the damn thing themselves instead of being so pushy about it. Deleted the post for good measure, but the footage is 23 f*cking years old and it's a historic event for their area.
 
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AngelAndHisWx

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Oy. So I'm the one who has the KWTX video of Jarrell. It was acquired second hand from a chase DVD compiled by a small group of chasers in the early 2000s, and was supplied by Lon Curtis. He says the video is still under their copyright, hence why uploads are scarce. My guess is it's a combination of them knowing they have the best video of the tornado and wanting to milk it dry, and because of copyrights with Nat Geo and Discovery Channel as well. Obviously I can't upload the video, even though I want to (home videos and chase videos are one thing, pro video from a television station is another), but what I can do is supply an image sequence taken at that critical transition period (as far as I'm aware, those are the only few seconds of video not available online). It's only 56 images (the segment is 56 seconds), but maybe it could be of use.
 

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I’ll get the GR3 files loaded and make a video loop of June 8th, 1995, but here are some damage pictures from the May 25, 1896 Oakwood-Ortonville-Thomas, MI EF5. They appear to show leveled homes and even debarked shrubs
 

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I’ll get the GR3 files loaded and make a video loop of June 8th, 1995, but here are some damage pictures from the May 25, 1896 Oakwood-Ortonville-Thomas, MI EF5. They appear to show leveled homes and even debarked shrubs
Ah yes, the May 1896 outbreak sequence is one I'd love to get more photos of, especially Sherman; it seems to have been extraordinarily intense from the reports and few photographs available.
 

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Sherman was a very interesting tornado. From my research the funnel initially swept many homes away outside of town but contracted to 60 yards, and remained extraordinarily intense. Reports are that grass was scoured from lawns, an iron bridge was twisted into many pieces and some thrown deep into the ground, a brick building swept away with bricks found embedded into the ground some 700 meters away from the foundation, trees stripped of bark or even pulled out of the ground with their roots and transformed into huge flying missiles. Unfortunately I only know of 3 photographs. I was able to find these pictures of the May 17, 1896 Seneca-Reserve KS EF5 that reached 2 miles wide:

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The tornado outbreak sequence also produced the killer St Louis F4 tornado. Even though the damage in St Louis itself wasn’t too impressive, it did produce near-F5 damage in East St Louis.
 

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andyhb

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I’ll get the GR3 files loaded and make a video loop of June 8th, 1995, but here are some damage pictures from the May 25, 1896 Oakwood-Ortonville-Thomas, MI EF5. They appear to show leveled homes and even debarked shrubs
Damn those are pretty impressive.
 
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Sherman was a very interesting tornado. From my research the funnel initially swept many homes away outside of town but contracted to 60 yards, and remained extraordinarily intense. Reports are that grass was scoured from lawns, an iron bridge was twisted into many pieces and some thrown deep into the ground, a brick building swept away with bricks found embedded into the ground some 700 meters away from the foundation, trees stripped of bark or even pulled out of the ground with their roots and transformed into huge flying missiles. Unfortunately I only know of 3 photographs. I was able to find these pictures of the May 17, 1896 Seneca-Reserve KS EF5 that reached 2 miles wide:

View attachment 4807
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Those Seneca photos are pretty impressive. So, regarding Sherman this imgur collection is the best I've come across:


A few pictures of note:

Sherman 1.jpeg

If you look closely you can see what looks like debarked low-lying shrubs or trees, hard to tell for certain with the B&W quality.

Sherman 2.jpeg
I would love to find a picture of this bridge before the tornado for comparison, not quite sure how to assess the damage and sense of scale in this photograph.

Sherman 3.jpeg
I think there is severe ground scouring visible here in this third pic, again hard to tell with the low quality B&W photography.

Sherman 4.jpeg
Would love to find pictures of this 'beautiful grove' before the tornado for sense of scale and clearer reference as well.
I highly recommend browsing through the other photographs (close to a dozen) on this imgur link, as it's the best I've ever found of Sherman.
 

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Alrighty, I have no idea how forums work so bear with me. This is a gif of Jarrell from the KWTX video. They were right next to the tornado as it started to transition.
Jarrell_KWTX_Video.gif
Looks like I can't upload all 56 images sadly, so only eight images it is. They're originally from a 480i source (because 1997), but I upscaled and deinterlaced to 1080p.
Drillbit_Breaking_Condensed_deinterlace-new 1.jpgDrillbit_Breaking_Condensed_deinterlace-new 2.jpgDrillbit_Breaking_Condensed_deinterlace-new 3.jpgDrillbit_Breaking_Condensed_deinterlace-new 4.jpgDrillbit_Breaking_Condensed_deinterlace-new 5.jpgDrillbit_Breaking_Condensed_deinterlace-new 6.jpgDrillbit_Breaking_Condensed_deinterlace-new 10.jpgDrillbit_Breaking_Condensed_deinterlace-new 11.jpg
 
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Alrighty, I have no idea how forums work so bear with me. This is a gif of Jarrell from the KWTX video. They were right next to the tornado as it started to transition.
View attachment 4825
Looks like I can't upload all 56 images sadly, so only eight images it is. They're originally from a 480i source (because 1997), but I upscaled and deinterlaced to 1080p.
View attachment 4838View attachment 4839View attachment 4840View attachment 4841View attachment 4842View attachment 4843View attachment 4844View attachment 4845
I guess you can't show a gif of the tornado going full multivortex? The gif here looks like the tornado practically disappeared and a new one took its place....real fascinating stuff.
 

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I guess you can't show a gif of the tornado going full multivortex? The gif here looks like the tornado practically disappeared and a new one took its place....real fascinating stuff.
But here's the thing. The funnel aloft stayed and it even had a debris cloud in tow that can be seen going left of the billboard poll. It's like when Dodge City Number 1 did its multivortex deal and the bottom broke off and another vortex formed as the new bottom, leaving the old one orphaned and to spin itself out. And sadly I don't have the multivortex phase. There's a gap in the recording between rope disappearing and the full condensed cone phase.
 
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