Significant Tornado Events

[SilentShadow87]

There are (probably apocryphal) tales circulated of how "Fujita himself" was so impressed by the damage from such-and-such tornado (most often Guin or Xenia from 1974) that he considered rating it an "F6." Alternatively, that Bridge Creek-Moore 1999 should have been rated F6 because DOW measured 318 MPH winds with it. Well, if there were such a thing as an EF6, Smithville would be it. Some of that damage is on another level even compared with other EF5s (IMO only Parkersburg, IA 2008 comes close, with extreme debris granulation).

Interestingly I seldom hear Jarrell mentioned in the "F6" conversation despite the totality of the destruction, I wonder if it is discounted because of its slow movement?

Jordan, IA (June 12, 1976) is another example which I think is especially weird considering none of the available damage photos appear to show anything that wouldn't be expected from a "typical" violent tornado. There's some fairly visible wind-rowing of debris in one shot, but not anywhere near as extreme as, say, Andover or Smithville.

 

[MNTornadoGuy]

Most intense damage from the Jordan IA tornado that I could find. The damage is violent but far from the level of Smithville or Jarrell.

 

[Marshal79344]

Besides the ABC 33/40 video, I managed to find an aerial of Guin below

 

[Marshal79344]

I also did some more digging and found these photos from the Tri-State Tornado:

Annapolis

Gorham (the railroad tracks were the first thing the tornado encountered as it entered town)

Aerial at Murphysboro

More Murphysboro

Note the brick home sheared off at ground level at the bottom left

De Soto


In White County, probably near Crossville, IL (the tornado passed just south of here, crossing paths with the 2/28/2017 Crossville EF3 from the Perryville Supercell) this home was so badly annihilated it's hard to tell what was there. Note the granulated debris in the foreground and what appears to be debarked foliage in the background

Griffin

 

[Marshal79344]

I also did some more digging and found these photos from the Tri-State Tornado:

Annapolis
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Gorham (the railroad tracks were the first thing the tornado encountered as it entered town)
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Aerial at Murphysboro
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More Murphysboro
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Note the brick home sheared off at ground level at the bottom left
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De Soto
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In White County, probably near Crossville, IL (the tornado passed just south of here, crossing paths with the 2/28/2017 Crossville EF3 from the Perryville Supercell) this home was so badly annihilated it's hard to tell what was there. Note the granulated debris in the foreground and what appears to be debarked foliage in the background
View attachment 4932
Griffin
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Continued with Griffin

 

[Marshal79344]

Continued with Griffin
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There were also some photos from unknown locations. The first one shows a clearly debarked tree with something wrapped around it

 

[Oakhurst_Wx]

That Guin aerial photo is interesting....looks like a narrow swath of damage in the upper part of the picture and selective damage throughout the downtown area...there's a PDF of the book 'A Night to Remember' by Charles Jordan that used to be available on NOAA and it has some more B&W damage pics from Guin but nothing in particular stuck out to me. I have the PDF on my computer but it's too large to upload to the forums here. I have some pics posted from it on page 42 of this forum, some are pretty impressive but nothing strikes me as 'F6'.
Also, this Murphysboro aerial is pretty impressive, right next to the railroad it looks like an entire neighborhood has been swept away.
View attachment 4942

Also, this pic right here:

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Is this an aerial of a house from the air? Not quite sure what I'm looking at, apparently it was in White County, near Crossville, IL? I'm still not quite sure where the house ends and the foliage begins

That is a photo of a home from the ground that was so completely annihilated that it’s hard to tell it was a house. If you look slightly beyond the area where the home used to be you can see trees mowed down and debarked

 

[buckeye05]

Some of the most impressive pictures of damage from Guin I could find online

That third to last pic actually shows very impressive ground scouring in the foreground; some of the most intense I’ve probably actually ever seen photographed in the state of Alabama. The way only bare soil and dirt clumps are left is consistent with damage from some of the most violent tornadoes.

It strongly reminds me of some of the scouring left behind by Moore 2013. What is even more impressive is that Guin was much faster moving than Moore, and Alabama soil is much less scour-prone than loamy, powdery Oklahoma soil. Overall, this lends more credence to the idea of Guin being a remarkably violent event. I’m less skeptical than I previously was.

 

[MNTornadoGuy]

That third to last pic actually shows very impressive ground scouring in the foreground; some of the most intense I’ve probably actually ever seen photographed in the state of Alabama. The way only bare soil and dirt clumps are left is consistent with damage from some of the most violent tornadoes.

It strongly reminds me of some of the scouring left behind by Moore 2013. What is even more impressive is that Guin was much faster moving than Moore, and Alabama soil is much less scour-prone than loamy, powdery Oklahoma soil. Overall, this lends more credence to the idea of Guin being a remarkably violent event. I’m less skeptical than I previously was.

Yeah it was pretty impressive. Also in one of Fujita's articles he said he would create a book containing damage pictures from his survey of the 1974 Super Outbreak. Unfortunately it seems like it was either never published or it has been lost. It might have contained more impressive damage photographs from Guin.

 

[Juliett Bravo Kilo]

Some of the most impressive pictures of damage from Guin I could find online.

Found a view more from Guin via this link: https://abc3340.com/news/local/gall...r-shares-survival-story-from-historic-tornado






Looks like a large section of town was completely swept away in the aerial photo, but hard to tell with the low quality imagery:

 

[MNTornadoGuy]

Found a view more from Guin via this link: https://abc3340.com/news/local/gall...r-shares-survival-story-from-historic-tornado

View attachment 4946View attachment 4947




Looks like a large section of town was completely swept away in the aerial photo, but hard to tell with the low quality imagery:

Interesting that does look intense. Also I wonder if the rumors of foundations being swept away came from cinder-block foundations being partly swept away like that first photo shows.

 

[Juliett Bravo Kilo]

Interesting that does look intense. Also I wonder if the rumors of foundations being swept away came from cinder-block foundations being partly swept away like that first photo shows.

Probably, Hackleburg and Smithville did similar things, so that's probably where Guin got its 'F6' reputation, along with being early in Fujita's career, many tornadoes he considered the most intense he surveyed (such as Guin or Jordan, Iowa) don't seem all that intense based on the available damage photographs. I'm not as skeptical about Guin as I once was, but I wish I could find even more photos of intense scouring, debarking and the like.

 

[Juliett Bravo Kilo]

That third to last pic actually shows very impressive ground scouring in the foreground; some of the most intense I’ve probably actually ever seen photographed in the state of Alabama. The way only bare soil and dirt clumps are left is consistent with damage from some of the most violent tornadoes.

It strongly reminds me of some of the scouring left behind by Moore 2013. What is even more impressive is that Guin was much faster moving than Moore, and Alabama soil is much less scour-prone than loamy, powdery Oklahoma soil. Overall, this lends more credence to the idea of Guin being a remarkably violent event. I’m less skeptical than I previously was.

One thing about Guin I'm curious about is how despite being fast-moving, rain-wrapped, nocturnal and an F5 is the rather low fatality count (28). I'd expect something much higher given the circumstances, the 'nocturnal' part in particular.

 

[MNTornadoGuy]

Tornado damage in William Bankhead National Forest.

 

[MNTornadoGuy]

Does anyone here know if any of the 1992 Widespread Outbreak tornadoes produced high-end F4 damage?

 

[buckeye05]

Found a view more from Guin via this link: https://abc3340.com/news/local/gall...r-shares-survival-story-from-historic-tornado

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Looks like a large section of town was completely swept away in the aerial photo, but hard to tell with the low quality imagery:

Two things:

First off, that first pic shows EXACTLY how the untrue rumor that the Guin tornado swept away house foundations in town got started. The untrained eye would see the bare dirt and assume that's what happened. However, with this type of construction, no slab was there to begin with. All that was torn away was the wooden floor platform. This reinforces what I previously thought about the origins of this rumor.

Second off all, your interpretation of the second pic is accurate. It appears that the Guin tornado cut a wide path of damage through town, but with only a narrow swath of extreme damage at the very center. The brownish streak of discoloration through the center may very well be ground scouring. I did a lot of digging up of info on Guin years ago, and I do have a low-quality, close up aerial shot of the center left-hand area visible in the above photo. It shows total obliteration of a residential area, with one larger house at the center completely slabbed. The site where I store my damage pics is down right now so I can't post it, but that slabbed house is actually also faintly visible in the above pic.

Now on the right hand segment of the narrow swath of extreme damage above, you can barely see another completely slabbed house just beyond Guin's downtown area. A close up aerial shot of that area was posted earlier, with a closer view of the aforementioned slabbed house. It's to the right of center near the top part of the photo, just right of that main road.

 

[Juliett Bravo Kilo]

Does anyone here know if any of the 1992 Widespread Outbreak tornadoes produced high-end F4 damage?

I assume you mean the one in November? Well, the most notable tornado from that outbreak by far is the Brandon, MS F4 that travelled 128 miles across Mississippi for 2.5 hours. It's path is pretty similar in places to the Candlestick Park storm of 1966 (in fact, it traveled through Rankin and Scott County).

The tornado talk article on it:

Brandon/Rankin County, MS F4 Tornado – November 21-22, 1992 – Tornado Talk

www.tornadotalk.com

NOAA article on it:

NWS Jackson, MS--November 21-22, 1992 Tornado Outbreak

WLBT article on it: https://www.wlbt.com/story/36902118...992-tornado-outbreak-on-its-25th-anniversary/

The most notable instance of damage that I can find a clear photograph of is of this large, well-constructed, brick mansion in the Easthaven subdivision of Jackson that was obliterated, killing all 4 occupants immediately. One of the occupants' bodies was found a quarter mile away from the foundation.

 

[buckeye05]

So this is another aerial of Guin from a book called 'April 3, 1974: The Alabama Tornadoes' by C.F. Boone that a user on the old thread posted a ton of pics from, some had impressive ground levels of what looked like intense damage in Guin but hard to tell based on the quality. I wish I had a copy of the book or could find a PDF of it online but this is the only photograph available from it I've been able to come across. It looks a large building of some sort was completely leveled in the upper part of the picture and in the center right there appears to be an empty lot of houses and some intense ground scouring (notice the black splotches) but hard to tell for sure.

View attachment 4951

So the large building that you see obliterated in the upper left hand corner was the Guin Mobile Home Plant. Its metal beam framing was badly mangled and partially pushed off the foundation. Here are some additional photos of the plant:

 

[buckeye05]

While on the topic of Guin, here is a very grainy shot of the very hard-hit residential area I mentioned earlier. You can see at least one house cleanly slabbed near the center of the pic:

There were also quite a few homes obliterated and swept away near the mobile home plant too:

 

[MNTornadoGuy]

While on the topic of Guin, here is a very grainy shot of the very hard-hit residential area I mentioned earlier. You can see at least one house cleanly slabbed near the center of the pic:

There were also quite a few homes obliterated and swept away near the mobile home plant too:

Guin is starting to look more and more intense and my doubt on its rumored extreme intensity is starting to erode though I still haven’t seen anything on the level of Hackleburg or Smithville.