Significant Tornado Events

[Juliett Bravo Kilo]

The damage the May 3rd Tornado did in it's initial peak intensity was extraordinary. Here are some pics I have of the damage in that area.

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A couple other notable pics from this tornado:



Damage in the Bridge Creek area. Not the ground scouring and completely debarked low-lying vegetation; you can see the direction it's bent in, indicating the direction of the tornado.



A mangled automobile that was blown half a mile and wedged underneath an overpass.

 

[buckeye05]

I’ve noticed that sometimes BMX assigns higher wind speed estimates to certain DAT damage points than the official wind speed given in the written survey. Most recently saw this with Fultondale IIRC.

 

[eric11]

I think I may find out the pic of Loyal valley TX tornado itself

Here's the source

 

[eric11]

I've got a whole collection of the 99 Bridge creek/Moore tornado but considering the restriction of picture delievering I may only published a few of them, or some of the most violent in my view
This car& lawnmower were under the 4-Lane 134th St Bridge near S Penn Ave

Another car tossed in the field near 134th St Bridge on S Penn Ave.

Tons of cars were completely stripped down to its frames mangled beyond recognition, some were thrown over half a mile away with no ground contact near Bridge Creek.



This is the same car as which was published on the NWS website from a different angle.By examining how it was tangled around the telephone pole, I'm assuming this car was thrown for long distance, hit the ground ,leaned on the telephone poles and bent,tangled for several times by the violent horizontal wind before its body was sandblasted by debris.

As the tornado narrowrd and crossed into McClain County.A woman hidding under an overpass were thrown for nearly a mile with her Astro Van, her son was caked in the mud but survived.Significant ground scouring occured near the overpass as some storm chasers reported raining of tree branches and red dirt.


Two propane tanks thrown from unknow locations

 

[eric11]

The tornado entered directly into western Moore, leveled entire blocks of homes.Trees were almost completely debarked with barely no visible branches or barks remaining.




This place near Western Ave. in west moore experienced extreme wind as you can see, low-lying shrubbs were completely debarked, house's debris were disintegrated and dismembered into small pieces no bigger than 2x4cm shroudded with the mixture of grass and mud.Cars were completely mangled beyond recognition.Tim Marshall once used contextual damage around here as an example to illustrate the difference between an F/EF4 and an F/EF5.

 

[pohnpei]

Some debarking of 13 Moore EF5 tornado that may not been posted here before. In some places, almost every single tree or shrub or something else above the ground was completely debarked along tornado's path. When trees were completely debarked, it means that the highest bound of this DI had been reached. Winds can just be high enough to completely debark trees, which were already extremely high. Or winds can be much higher than the threshold of completely debarking trees. If there were a huge amount of all varieties of vegatation completely debarked, the probability of the latter one can be higher.


Also some wind rowing feature it made were unconcievable.

 

[Marshal79344]

Horizontal vortices are typically associated with EF4 and EF5 tornadoes. I am sure some weaker tornadoes have carried horizontal vortices. At minimum I would say a tornado with horizontal vortices is at least an EF3 and likely greater.

Horizontal vortices aren't just a measure of tornado intensity, but can also appear due to the extreme wind shear levels present

For example, this EF3 Tornado that struck Foshan, China was spawned by a landfalling typhoon. Because it's a tropical cyclone, you know that there is going to be a lot of wind shear available for these storms to ingest.


However, there have been other examples of horizontal vortices appearing from pure and raw power, such as May 3 1999, Jarrell, and Carney-Fallis 2013

 

[Marshal79344]

I also wrote a blog post about the May 9th, 2006 Westminster, TX tornado. It includes an analysis of the meteorological setup, the parent supercell, and the damage path. The post includes aerials and an interactive KMZ file of the tornado track that I created: https://sites.google.com/view/oakhurstwx/historical-tornado-events/westminster-tx-tornado-may-9-2006

 

[CheeselandSkies]

I also wrote a blog post about the May 9th, 2006 Westminster, TX tornado. It includes an analysis of the meteorological setup, the parent supercell, and the damage path. The post includes aerials and an interactive KMZ file of the tornado track that I created: https://sites.google.com/view/oakhurstwx/historical-tornado-events/westminster-tx-tornado-may-9-2006

Perhaps the only notable Plains tornado event of May, 2006.

 

[pohnpei]

Horizontal vortices aren't just a measure of tornado intensity, but can also appear due to the extreme wind shear levels present

For example, this EF3 Tornado that struck Foshan, China was spawned by a landfalling typhoon. Because it's a tropical cyclone, you know that there is going to be a lot of wind shear available for these storms to ingest.
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However, there have been other examples of horizontal vortices appearing from pure and raw power, such as May 3 1999, Jarrell, and Carney-Fallis 2013

Foshan has always been considered a mini tornado alley due to its unique topography. The only tornado research center in China is also located in Foshan.

In summer, when typhoon make landfall west of Foshan, there can be a good chance for this place to produce one or two tornaodos. The biggest tornado outbreak occurred in 2006, brought by Typhoon Prapiroon with five tornados in one day:
2006 Foshan tornado
2015 Foshan tornado did occurred in an environment of unusual high shear for this place because the typhoon made landfall at this time was a CAT 4 with winds of 115KT. This level of typhoon certainly enhance the low level shear of the environment.

 

[eric11]

Two years ago the violent Beauregard EF4 took twenty three lives away.Unlike most Dixie violent, Beauregard really standed out for its impressive car damage.We all know vehicle damage is the weakness to most Dixie violent maybe due to the fact that dense forests may decrease the near-ground horizontal and vertical wind thus the flow beneath is too weak to lift the vehicle into the air. But something strange occurred to the Beauregard one, as many vehicles were lift into the air, hurdled for several times, some were mangled beyond recognition.The severity of the car damage was equivalent to some of the most violent tornadoes in Dixie like Hackleburg and Smithville.The tornado carried a Billboard sign for 20 miles as well, which is extremely rare for such a low end EF4.

 

[Marshal79344]

Two years ago the violent Beauregard EF4 took twenty three lives away.Unlike most Dixie violent, Beauregard really standed out for its impressive car damage.We all know vehicle damage is the weakness to most Dixie violent maybe due to the fact that dense forests may decrease the near-ground horizontal and vertical wind thus the flow beneath is too weak to lift the vehicle into the air. But something strange occurred to the Beauregard one, as many vehicles were lift into the air, hurdled for several times, some were mangled beyond recognition.The severity of the car damage was equivalent to some of the most violent tornadoes in Dixie like Hackleburg and Smithville.The tornado carried a Billboard sign for 20 miles as well, which is extremely rare for such a low end EF4.
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I definitely agree that the tornado was higher than low-end EF4. It's terribly unfortunate that the tornado had to peak in intensity at the location it did. Worst case scenario on all sides.

 

[buckeye05]

Some debarking of 13 Moore EF5 tornado that may not been posted here before. In some places, almost every single tree or shrub or something else above the ground was completely debarked along tornado's path. When trees were completely debarked, it means that the highest bound of this DI had been reached. Winds can just be high enough to completely debark trees, which were already extremely high. Or winds can be much higher than the threshold of completely debarking trees. If there were a huge amount of all varieties of vegatation completely debarked, the probability of the latter one can be higher.
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Also some wind rowing feature it made were unconcievable.
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Geez. Both of the Moore E/F5 events produced some of the most intense scouring and debarking I’ve ever seen. I haven’t seen a good portion of those 1999 pics.

 

[andyhb]

Beauregard was definitely a case of "didn't hit many things that could be rated EF4" rather than being on the low end.

 

[Juliett Bravo Kilo]

I've got a whole collection of the 99 Bridge creek/Moore tornado but considering the restriction of picture delievering I may only published a few of them, or some of the most violent in my view
This car& lawnmower were under the 4-Lane 134th St Bridge near S Penn Ave
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Another car tossed in the field near 134th St Bridge on S Penn Ave.
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Tons of cars were completely stripped down to its frames mangled beyond recognition, some were thrown over half a mile away with no ground contact near Bridge Creek.
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This is the same car as which was published on the NWS website from a different angle.By examining how it was tangled around the telephone pole, I'm assuming this car was thrown for long distance, hit the ground ,leaned on the telephone poles and bent,tangled for several times by the violent horizontal wind before its body was sandblasted by debris.
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As the tornado narrowrd and crossed into McClain County.A woman hidding under an overpass were thrown for nearly a mile with her Astro Van, her son was caked in the mud but survived.Significant ground scouring occured near the overpass as some storm chasers reported raining of tree branches and red dirt.
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Two propane tanks thrown from unknow locations
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Really cool you have all these alternative angles of well-known photographs of vehicle damage and ground/vegetation scouring and debarking from this thing, never seen the lawnmower with the car underneath the overpass before, amazed the lawnmower's still intact. I think you have a picture of this car from another angle in your photos above, but not entirely sure (given how mangled it is). Figured I might as well post it here.

 

[TH2002]

Has there been much discussion of the April 10, 2009 Murfreesboro tornado in this thread? Unsure however here are some of my favorite videos of the storm:
Rather obsure and impressive video taken as the tornado was forming


One of the few clear, unobstructed views of the tornado during the wedge stage

 

[Equus]

Wow, the first one is new to me. That'd be an absolute classic with more steady camera work.

For a violent tornado Murfreesboro was kinda forgotten, I guess squeezed between the 2008 and 2010 seasons full of many violents.

 

[warneagle]

Beauregard did some of the most impressive vehicle damage I've seen in the south aside from Smithville.

 

[Marshal79344]

Some Murfreesboro Aerial Damage I have on file:



The Tornado Itself


The tornado on radar. The radar seemed to miss the true intensity of the couplet except for this scan below. TDWR didn't do too well with this either.

 

[TH2002]

If there's one thing I love doing, that would be finding very obsure and underappreciated footage of tornadoes.
Found this gem that shows much of the lifecycle of the April 27, 2011 Cullman tornado in that area:


Impressive footage of the April 10, 2009 Mena, AR tornado: