Significant Tornado Events

[buckeye05]

I didn't see the amazing damage to cars and trees caused by Funing tornado, but now I'm wrong. This 2.5-mile-wide monster will peel off low trees, destroy vehicles, make them unrecognizable, cause incredible damage to power poles, and raise topsoil, which usually symbolizes the damage of ef4-5. Especially considering that the RMW of a tornado is larger and requires strong wind power, I think it is obviously the strongest tornado outside North America

I’m very curious about that last photo. Is that severe ground scouring, with a pipe unearthed from the ground on the left? I can’t really tell.

Also, I have seen a short, low-quality video of the Funing EF4, and it looks almost identical to Jeff Piotrowski’s Joplin EF5 video from 2011. This thing was a huge, dark wedge than almost created a nighttime-like darkness as it struck, and was shrouded in a massive cloud of debris and wrapping rain curtains. Funing and Joplin were probably quite similar events.

 

[MNTornadoGuy]

I’m very curious about that last photo. Is that severe ground scouring, with a pipe unearthed from the ground on the left? I can’t really tell.

Also, I have seen a short, low-quality video of the Funing EF4, and it looks almost identical to Jeff Piotrowski’s Joplin EF5 video from 2011. This thing was a huge, dark wedge than almost created a nighttime-like darkness as it struck, and was shrouded in a massive cloud of debris and wrapping rain curtains. Funing and Joplin were probably quite similar events.

That looks like it is some irrigation pipe that was already on the surface.

 

[buckeye05]

That looks like it is some irrigation pipe that was already on the surface.

Oh you know what I think you’re right. For a minute, I thought I was looking at some near-Smithville caliber damage.

 

[buckeye05]

Regarding the most violent tornado outside of North America, I’d say that Funing is a contender, but there are some South American tornadoes that give it a run for its money, notably San Justo 1973 and San Pedro 2009.

 

[MNTornadoGuy]

Regarding the most violent tornado outside of North America, I’d say that Funing is a contender, but there are some South American tornadoes that give it a run for its money, notably San Justo 1973 and San Pedro 2009.

The structural and contextual damage from Funing isn’t too impressive in my opinion as homes were leveled but debris wasn’t wind-rowed and the scouring and vehicle damage isn’t as extreme as some of the other tornado damage from China I’ve seen.

 

[Robinson lee]

Yes, these two South American tornadoes are undoubtedly violent tornadoes, and they are also very strong competitors. But here I have some doubts about the San husto F5 incident. The destruction of the monster's car is very reminiscent of the destruction of the EF5. However, according to Wikipedia in South America, tornadoes seem to be slow. Of course, there may be errors in this record. There are many serious car damages in the city. You know the slow speed of tornadoes and the impact of buildings on vehicles can aggravate the damage to cars.

 

[Robinson lee]

I’m very curious about that last photo. Is that severe ground scouring, with a pipe unearthed from the ground on the left? I can’t really tell.

Also, I have seen a short, low-quality video of the Funing EF4, and it looks almost identical to Jeff Piotrowski’s Joplin EF5 video from 2011. This thing was a huge, dark wedge than almost created a nighttime-like darkness as it struck, and was shrouded in a massive cloud of debris and wrapping rain curtains. Funing and Joplin were probably quite similar events.

I think it's a collapsed power pole, buried in the ground
Yes, Funing and Joplin events are similar in that they are both caused by supercell thunderstorms with high precipitation. The tornado was hidden in the rain. In many cases, tornadoes are hard to see. Highly invisible tornadoes and inadequate protection of tornadoes lead to a large number of deaths

 

[pohnpei]

The structural and contextual damage from Funing isn’t too impressive in my opinion as homes were leveled but debris wasn’t wind-rowed and the scouring and vehicle damage isn’t as extreme as some of the other tornado damage from China I’ve seen.

The continuality of the EF4 damage of Funing tornado was incredible for a tornado in China. These kinds of feature at least indicate mid to high EF4 level.
The damage to trees was hard to compare from county to county, let alone different continent.
There were largely debarking trees and mangled cars in Funing, the number of these cases was far exceed other tornados in China as I know. One thing that may bring to uncertainty was the lack of enough information for those violent tornados back to 60s or 70s in China.

 

[MNTornadoGuy]

The continuality of the EF4 damage of Funing tornado was incredible for a tornado in China. These kinds of feature at least indicate mid to high EF4 level.
The damage to trees was hard to compare from county to county, let alone different continent.
There were largely debarking trees and mangled cars in Funing, the number of these cases was far exceed other tornados in China as I know. One thing that may bring to uncertainty was the lack of enough information for those violent tornados back to 60s or 70s in China.

The Funing tornado was impressive for its extremely large width and its widespread EF4 damage but not for sheer intensity. In my opinion the damage from the 1969 Tianjin tornado and the 2019 Kaiyuan tornado was more impressive.

 

[pohnpei]

The Funing tornado was impressive for its extremely large width and its widespread EF4 damage but not for sheer intensity. In my opinion the damage from the 1969 Tianjin tornado and the 2019 Kaiyuan tornado was more impressive.

Kaiyuan had only one single EF4 point inside a city that full of DIs along its path, the rest of them was only EF2-low end EF3 level. (These kinds of tornado like Hattisburg 2013 , Rowlett 2015, Dayton 2019 were all considered low end EF4 strength with no exception.)
Funing had at least hundreds of EF4 rating houses along its path in rural area. I also doubt Kaiyuan was particular strong at its EF4 point due to the lack of real engineers participating the survey. Sometimes, it takes less winds to knock down a large scale building beacuse of the larger weak point of the building.
The tree damage, the vehicle damage was far less severe than Funing for Kaiyuan tornado. Acutally the EF4 rating of Kaiyuan was to some degree debateable through I personally thought low end EF4 was reasonable. So I don't think there were real comparison of intensity between these two tornados.
Another point was that and it always takes much intense winds to do the same damage for a tornado with bigger RMW.
You can read this article for example:https://journals.ametsoc.org/view/j...16-0258.1.xml?tab_body=fulltext-display#bib45
One of the reason that I believe Greensburg 07 wasn't a marginal EF5 with largest EF4 damage width ever surveyed and very intense debarking inside the town.
Also can be the reason why Sulphur EF3 fail to do any violent damage despite winds over 100m/s near the ground.

 

[MNTornadoGuy]

Kaiyuan had only one single EF4 point inside a city that full of DIs along its path, the rest of them was only EF2-low end EF3 level. (These kinds of tornado like Hattisburg 2013 , Rowlett 2015, Dayton 2019 were all considered low end EF4 strength with no exception.)
Funing had at least hundreds of EF4 rating houses along its path in rural area. I also doubt Kaiyuan was particular strong at its EF4 point due to the lack of real engineers participating the survey. Sometimes, it takes less winds to knock down a large scale building beacuse of the larger weak point of the building.
The tree damage, the vehicle damage was far less severe than Funing for Kaiyuan tornado. Acutally the EF4 rating of Kaiyuan was to some degree debateable through I personally thought low end EF4 was reasonable. So I don't think there were real comparison of intensity between these two tornados.
Another point was that and it always takes much intense winds to do the same damage for a tornado with bigger RMW.
You can read this article for example:https://journals.ametsoc.org/view/j...16-0258.1.xml?tab_body=fulltext-display#bib45
One of the reason that I believe Greensburg 07 wasn't a marginal EF5 with largest EF4 damage width ever surveyed and very intense debarking inside the town.
Also can be the reason why Sulphur EF3 fail to do any violent damage despite winds over 100m/s near the ground.
View attachment 5962

Almost all of the EF4 DIs from the 2016 Funing tornado were one-story farmhouses where debris wasn't thrown very far at all unlike in many other high-end EF4s. I haven't seen a photograph of a slabbed home.

 

[pohnpei]

Almost all of the EF4 DIs from the 2016 Funing tornado were one-story farmhouses where debris wasn't thrown very far at all unlike in many other high-end EF4s. I haven't seen a photograph of a slabbed home.

I don't know this can be called "slabbed home"

Not that clean obviously but this was not FR12 residence in Amercia.
There were a host of these kinds of destroyed houses along the path of the tornado.


The debris pattern as I see, at least, can't be comparable by any other tornados in China.

 

[Austin Dawg]

Yeah, many Dixie events likely have highly-underrated fatality counts as African-American fatalites were rarely documented by newspapers or doctors, and many people who succumbed to their injuries months later would likely not be followed up on. Really makes you wonder as to the true "deadliest" tornado in American (or world) history.
In terms of places hit by tornadoes that have reputations for being haunted, that's really interesting to think about. I'm not one to believe in the supernatural, but I do recall reading somewhere (I wish I could find the source) that supposedly some buildings in some of the towns in Illinois struck by the Tri-State tornado may have had reputations for being (these were locations that were used as makeshift morgues or hospitals) but other than that not sure. I do know that some tornadoes were considered divine punishment by African-American communities in areas that were well known for lynchings and the like.

The Natchez Tornado is another example of this.

The Natchez Tornado of 1840

Another Article

 

[MNTornadoGuy]

I don't know this can be called "slabbed home"
View attachment 5974
Not that clean obviously but this was not FR12 residence in Amercia.
There were a host of these kinds of destroyed houses along the path of the tornado.
View attachment 5975

The debris pattern as I see, at least, can't be comparable by any other tornados in China.
View attachment 5977

I don't consider that to be slabbed as most of the debris remains on the foundation and some small walls are still standing.

 

[Robinson lee]

I don't consider that to be slabbed as most of the debris remains on the foundation and some small walls are still standing.

The architecture in China and Europe is different from that in the United States. The building materials used in China and Europe are much heavier than those in the United States. Extremeplanet also mentioned these in his blog, for example, the Italian tornado Mira in 2015 and the French tornado in 2008 did not clean the foundation. Moreover, given the density of buildings, debris often does not seem to be swept away. This large two-story house, completely swept, is a brick concrete structure with steel reinforcement inside

The first is a large brick concrete and steel structure house destroyed by tornado in Funing, and the second is a large brick structure house destroyed by Mira in 2015

 

[pohnpei]

Take 2019 Havana, Cuba tornado as an example, this tornado was rated 185mph by NWS Key West but I don't think there was any clear slab left by the tornado. Just a matter of difference of building construction things.

 

[Casuarina Head]

One tornado that no one has mentioned yet is the Ethridge, TN, F4 of 18 May 1995. According to Thomas P. Grazulis’ Significant Tornadoes Update: 1992–1995, that tornado reportedly obliterated three high-tension Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) towers. In other words, the towers themselves physically vanished, that is, were described as being “never found.” If I recall correctly, former user CAL (is he still around?) once stated on the old TW forum that J. B. Elliott reported a similar phenomenon as a result of the first Tanner F5 on 3 April 1974. In that case the first Tanner tornado was said to have literally annihilated high-tension towers, just as the Ethridge tornado supposedly did. Mr. Elliott was also one of the source(s) for claims that the first Tanner F5 and the Guin tornado obliterated entire foundations. CAL also claimed to have known second- or third-hand sources that confirmed the story about a pickup truck being carried 20 miles as a result of the Lawrence County, TN, F5 of 16 April 1998 (the so-called “Forgotten F5”). As an aside, the anecdote about the pickup truck is also mentioned in the April 1998 edition of Storm Data, if I recall correctly. Of course, I could be wrong about most of this, but I do have a copy of Significant Tornadoes Update, from which the Ethridge anecdote is derived.

 

[Casuarina Head]

If I were to compile a list of candidates for “top-tier” tornadoes, intensity-wise, I would include the following as all-time contenders:

• Pomeroy, IA (6 July 1893)
• Sherman, TX (15 May 1896)
• Ortonville, MI (25 May 1896)
• New Richmond, WI (12 June 1899)
• Andale, KS (25 May 1917)
• Fergus Falls, MN (22 June 1919)
• Tri-State: MO–IL–IN (18 March 1925)
• Frost, TX (6 May 1930)
• Tupelo, MS (5 April 1936)
• Oberlin, KS (29 April 1942)
• Antlers, OK (12 April 1945)
• Glazier–Higgins, TX/Woodward, OK (9 April 1947)
• Leedey, OK (31 May 1947)
• Beecher, MI (8 June 1953)
• Udall, KS (25 May 1955)
• Hudsonville, MI (3 April 1956)
• Prague–Iron Post–Sapulpa, OK (5 May 1960)
• Lake Pleasant, IN/Coldwater Lake #1, MI (11 April 1965)
• Lebanon–Sheridan, IN (11 April 1965)
• Primrose, NE (8 May 1965)
• Jackson–Forkville, MS (3 March 1966)
• Tracy, MN (13 June 1968)
• Lubbock, TX (11 May 1970)
• San Justo, Santa Fe, Argentina (10 January 1973)
• Brandenburg, KY (3 April 1974)
• Mt. Moriah–Tanner #1, AL (3 April 1974)
• Guin, AL (3 April 1974)
• Niles, OH/Wheatland, PA (31 May 1985)
• Edmonton, Alberta, Canada (31 July 1987)
• Hesston, KS (13 March 1990)
• Bakersfield Valley, TX (1 June 1990)
• Stratton, NE (15 June 1990)
• Plainfield, IL (28 August 1990)
• Andover, KS (26 April 1991)
• Jarrell, TX (27 May 1997)
• Oak Grove, AL (8 April 1998)
• Lawrence County, TN (16 April 1998)
• Bridge Creek–Moore, OK (3 May 1999)
• Loyal Valley, TX (11 May 1999)
• Harper, KS (12 May 2004)
• Roanoke, IL (13 July 2004)
• Elie, Manitoba, Canada (22 June 2007)
• Atkins–Clinton–Zion, AR (5 February 2008)
• Parkersburg–New Hartford, IA (25 May 2008)
• Philadelphia, MS (27 April 2011)
• Hackleburg–Phil Campbell–Tanner, AL (27 April 2011)
• Smithville, MS (27 April 2011)
• Joplin, MO (22 May 2011)
• Calumet–El Reno–Piedmont, OK (24 May 2011)
• Chickasha, OK (24 May 2011)
• Goldsby, OK (24 May 2011)
• Moore, OK (20 May 2013)
• Vilonia, AR (27 April 2014)
• Bassfield, MS (12 April 2020)

 

[Robinson lee]

If I were to compile a list of candidates for “top-tier” tornadoes, intensity-wise, I would include the following as all-time contenders:

• Pomeroy, IA (6 July 1893)
• Sherman, TX (15 May 1896)
• Ortonville, MI (25 May 1896)
• New Richmond, WI (12 June 1899)
• Andale, KS (25 May 1917)
• Fergus Falls, MN (22 June 1919)
• Tri-State: MO–IL–IN (18 March 1925)
• Frost, TX (6 May 1930)
• Tupelo, MS (5 April 1936)
• Oberlin, KS (29 April 1942)
• Antlers, OK (12 April 1945)
• Glazier–Higgins, TX/Woodward, OK (9 April 1947)
• Leedey, OK (31 May 1947)
• Beecher, MI (8 June 1953)
• Udall, KS (25 May 1955)
• Hudsonville, MI (3 April 1956)
• Prague–Iron Post–Sapulpa, OK (5 May 1960)
• Lake Pleasant, IN/Coldwater Lake #1, MI (11 April 1965)
• Lebanon–Sheridan, IN (11 April 1965)
• Primrose, NE (8 May 1965)
• Jackson–Forkville, MS (3 March 1966)
• Tracy, MN (13 June 1968)
• Lubbock, TX (11 May 1970)
• San Justo, Santa Fe, Argentina (10 January 1973)
• Brandenburg, KY (3 April 1974)
• Mt. Moriah–Tanner #1, AL (3 April 1974)
• Guin, AL (3 April 1974)
• Niles, OH/Wheatland, PA (31 May 1985)
• Edmonton, Alberta, Canada (31 July 1987)
• Hesston, KS (13 March 1990)
• Bakersfield Valley, TX (1 June 1990)
• Stratton, NE (15 June 1990)
• Plainfield, IL (28 August 1990)
• Andover, KS (26 April 1991)
• Jarrell, TX (27 May 1997)
• Oak Grove, AL (8 April 1998)
• Lawrence County, TN (16 April 1998)
• Bridge Creek–Moore, OK (3 May 1999)
• Loyal Valley, TX (11 May 1999)
• Harper, KS (12 May 2004)
• Roanoke, IL (13 July 2004)
• Elie, Manitoba, Canada (22 June 2007)
• Atkins–Clinton–Zion, AR (5 February 2008)
• Parkersburg–New Hartford, IA (25 May 2008)
• Philadelphia, MS (27 April 2011)
• Hackleburg–Phil Campbell–Tanner, AL (27 April 2011)
• Smithville, MS (27 April 2011)
• Joplin, MO (22 May 2011)
• Calumet–El Reno–Piedmont, OK (24 May 2011)
• Chickasha, OK (24 May 2011)
• Goldsby, OK (24 May 2011)
• Moore, OK (20 May 2013)
• Vilonia, AR (27 April 2014)
• Bassfield, MS (12 April 2020)

I quite agree with your comments on most of the tornadoes on this list, but I have doubts about some of them, such as the Edmonton tornado that hit some big factories in 1987. However, considering that the factory is a large building, the MBS structure is only evaluated as ef4. In addition, the tornado threw out a big tank, but beyond that, in my opinion, there was no impressive non Di performance in other areas. Some ancient tornadoes need to consider the level of architecture and data detail, and now they may not have such a high level. In addition, the Chapman tornado in 2016, I think it can be added to this list because it caused some very impressive car and rail damage

 

[Juliett Bravo Kilo]

This is pretty cool, a ride-along with the Tri-State Tornado via google Earth. Really remarkable how many hills and valleys this thing traversed along its path.

Keep in mind that is using Google Earth, so this is modern locations of all these places and structures,some of which are probably quite a bit different then in 1925. This thing also assumes the tornado started near Ellington, MO and that the whole 219-mile long path was a single tornado and there were no breaks in it.