Marshal79344
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Some aerial photos I have. They certainly support an unusually large contour of violent tornado damage, clearly multiple-vortex.
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Significant Tornado Events
- Thread starter locomusic01
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Some aerial photos I have. They certainly support an unusually large contour of violent tornado damage, clearly multiple-vortex.
Marshal79344
Member
Some more obscure photos of Parkersburg that I believe haven't been posted in here. The tornado evolved after several convective mergers resulted in one, dominant supercell forming. There were several instances of extremely severe debarking in town. The intensity also seemed to increase dramatically as the tornado moved through town, as buildings on the southeastern side of the town seemed to be completely swept away. The violent contour of damage continued well into rural areas as well
One thing I found quite unusual was how the damage seemed to definitely decrease in intensity as it approached the grain bins (I'm not sure what it's called but I think it's called that), but then it picked right back up.
Here are some photos in rural areas near New Hartford.
One thing I found quite unusual was how the damage seemed to definitely decrease in intensity as it approached the grain bins (I'm not sure what it's called but I think it's called that), but then it picked right back up.
Here are some photos in rural areas near New Hartford.
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Juliett Bravo Kilo
Member
The last photo, the aerial of Parkersburg, REALLY impressive. It reminds me of Barneveld in that it was increasing in intensity as it was passing through (obviously Parkersburg was WAY more intense then Barneveld) and you can see what looks like some pretty intense wind rowing or ground scouring in the bottom right of the photo.
Juliett Bravo Kilo
Member
Wasn't sure where else to put this. This is a pretty cool presentation with arresting visuals:
Robinson lee
Member
Parkersburg is definitely an extremely violent EF5 tornado. I have a picture of the destruction of Parkersburg after it left town. Some houses have been swept down, and traces of scouring can be seen in the fields nearby. I was surprised that the tornado passed through an industrial area, and the damage here was much weaker than that in other places. I was curious about the reasons
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Juliett Bravo Kilo
Member
Some other damage pics and articles on this thing:
Doppler Radar Wind Spectra of Supercell Tornadoes
Abstract A storm-intercept team from the University of Oklahoma, using the Los Alamos National Laboratory portable, continuous wave/frequency modulated–continuous wave, 3-cm Doppler radar, collected close-range data at and below cloud base in six supercell tornadoes in the southern plains during...
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locomusic01
Member
Leigh has a number of presentations online about his modeling work and they're really fascinating. The last I saw, he was running simulations at 10-meter resolutions, which is super cool and reveals all sorts of weird stuff.
David in SW Blount
Member
This is what I was wondering about mostly. Not the number of EF5 data points, or the maximum intensity, but the length of the path containing them. But I can certainly understand that some tornadoes are more intensely scrutinized than others with more effort to find EF5 damage?
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Yeah surely there's variability between surveyors, not just who they are but also how much area they have to survey (multiple tracks, length of tracks), budget, time to do it. I imagine the biggest thing would be viable EF5 DI's though. There's just not a lot a violent tornado can hit to get that kind of rating as even the upper bound of many DI's maxes out at EF3/EF4 ratings.
Marshal79344
Member
I haven't seen anybody post about this particular event in this forum's history, but November 24, 2001, was a very significant Dixie Alley Tornado Event, with numerous rounds of supercells producing many significant tornadoes, a couple of which were intense. This post is going to talk about the most violent and worst tornado of the event.
ERA-5 Reanalysis for Theta-E Advection during the Tornado Outbreak
For some reason that I don't know, but likely was regarding the thermodynamics in the warm sector, open-warm sector convection had trouble sustaining themselves. Three different cells fired. The northern one produced an F3 Tornado before merging with the second one. They both proceeded to dissipate. However, the southernmost cell, which was on a trajectory to the areas just north of the Jackson suburbs, persisted the longest. It eventually wrapped up and dropped a tornado at the suburb of Madison in the early morning hours of November 24th. The tornado rapidly intensified, and with a fearful roar that sounded like freight trains, descended on the Fairfield Subdivision, which was made up of new, brick homes. Several homes in the subdivision were leveled, and two people lost their lives. The tornado quickly dissipated soon afterwards and the parent supercell failed to sustain itself and also dissipated.
The Tornado on Radar:
Damage Photos from the Fairfield Subdivision
Needless to say, the tornado definitely deserved the F4 rating. I'm certain it would have attained an EF4 rating today.
ERA-5 Reanalysis for Theta-E Advection during the Tornado Outbreak
For some reason that I don't know, but likely was regarding the thermodynamics in the warm sector, open-warm sector convection had trouble sustaining themselves. Three different cells fired. The northern one produced an F3 Tornado before merging with the second one. They both proceeded to dissipate. However, the southernmost cell, which was on a trajectory to the areas just north of the Jackson suburbs, persisted the longest. It eventually wrapped up and dropped a tornado at the suburb of Madison in the early morning hours of November 24th. The tornado rapidly intensified, and with a fearful roar that sounded like freight trains, descended on the Fairfield Subdivision, which was made up of new, brick homes. Several homes in the subdivision were leveled, and two people lost their lives. The tornado quickly dissipated soon afterwards and the parent supercell failed to sustain itself and also dissipated.
The Tornado on Radar:
Damage Photos from the Fairfield Subdivision
Needless to say, the tornado definitely deserved the F4 rating. I'm certain it would have attained an EF4 rating today.
Grain bins damage(I'm not sure what it's called but I think it's called that) was not a DI yet so I also know little about it. Here was some observation of mine. Just trying to explain that grain bin damage from Pakersburg tornado.
Destroying grain bins full of grains are harder than we may think about. But even EF1 tornado can destory empty grain bins. There are several cases that I can think of about violent tornado direct hit grain bins likely full of grains:
Case 1:
2015 Rochelle tornado swept away a well-built farmsteadand reduce a 40 ft (12 m) reinforced concrete silo into a pile of rubble. in this picture. This damage was rated 200mph by NWS. Winds at this place very likely into EF5 level yet still a grain bin was not destroyed at all. I think very likely it was full of grains.
Case 2:
Judging from Landsat, 2011 Berlin tornado likely direct hit or at least near direct hit this area. It can be seen from these vehicle damage that how intense tornado was in this area. Some likely empty grain bin was gone yet still one grain bin likely full of grains remian eract.
Case 3:
2004 Marion tornado went directly through this place with some empty grain binswept away, debris wrapping around the shelterbelt behind this place. Tornado likely being very violent in this area yet those grain bins full of grains were not destoryed.
Case 4:
2010 Hollandale, MN EF3 direct hit this place, some barns and farmstead swept away yet grain bins full of grains still stand despite tornado likely capable of doing violent damage here.
The most memorable grain bins damage to me was Pilger tornado 2014. These destroyed bins was not empty but also not full of grains. Some of these grain bins were tossed out of the town by the tornado.
grain bins tossed out of the town and full of dirt:
Look back to the grain bin damage of Pakersburg
Not sure about the construction, but there was house swept away in this place with large vehicle overturn nearby. I assume that it is very hard to destory these grain bins for sure full of grains in tornado's path. But tornado slightly weakened in this area was also very likely.
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It make me think of Altoona tornado from this event. I am very confused about the rating of this tornado.
It can be seen from the NWS website that these two pics below was when tornado reached F4 intensity:
emmm... It was just... I even questioned whether these damages can earn EF3 rating nowadays.
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David in SW Blount
Member
Altoona is in my county, and I can remember being really shocked to hear that an F4 tornado hit so close to home.
eric11
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Parkersburg did some ridiculous damage in the town yet cannot be explained like this one,
some sort of rubber layer being peeled off a concrete telephone pole?
Another two mangled cars with only the twisted axles remaining
Car axle and a tire wrapped around a tree
Some extreme ground scouring occurred in the windward slope near a small county Rd, as entire top layer of soil and grass were removed, note the windward slope tend to accelerate the horizontal wind and lead to more violent upward motion in microscale environment, similar phenomenon was pointed out by Jeff Piotrowski during the Jonesboro tornado damage survey last year
Common extreme debarking that you'll see in every other high-end EF5s.
This is a cemetery looking from a different angle of your pic 6
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eric11
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Yeah these were the same houses that had been claimed to be pretty well-built and some of them were constructed in less than three years according to extremeplanet, the tornado likely reached maximum strength right here, the wind were so strong that it caused the joint between the poured concrete inner walls and the foundation to shake and loose despite standard anchoring and nails were usedA lot of you have probably already seen most of these already, but here is my "Parkersburg was way more violent than everyone remembers" post. The damage that occurred in the golf course subdivision at the east side of town was about as high-end as it gets. These large homes were of exceptional construction, and some were left with virtually no visible debris. The type of damage that occurred in this area was about on par with Bridge Creek 1999. The last photo is an aerial of this area. Notice how there is no traceable debris pattern at some of the obliterated homes:
I'm curious whether these two pics were also taken near the Golf Course Subdivision
There's some ground scouring to the east of this area
Oak hill cemetery from a closer view
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Juliett Bravo Kilo
Member
Another notable November outbreak that somehow hasn't been mentioned on here yet is the November 9-11, 2002 outbreak, aka Veterans Day weekend tornado outbreak. It was extraordinary widespread for a November event (the geographical expanse of it comes close to 4/3/74 at times) and is one of the deadliest November outbreaks.
Article on the Van Wert, Ohio F4 that was the strongest tornado of the outbreak:
Van Wert, OH F4 Tornado – November 10, 2002 – Tornado Talk
www.tornadotalk.com
The demolished movie theater. Note the direction of the steel beams; it looks like very narrow and defined damage, perhaps the result of a narrow suction vortex?
Spectacular home video of it:
speedbump305
Member
I’m honestly really wondering just how violent parkersburg really was
CheeselandSkies
Member
I would put Parkersburg and El Reno '11 as the two most impressive of the official EF5s. Smithville next. Hackleburg stands out for breadth and longevity, and Joplin for the damage to the hospital and office buildings. Moore is right up there as well. Although really, it's splitting hairs because when you are talking about E/F5s (except those highly questionable ratings like Belmond 1966) and even most high-end EF4s, you are talking about the strongest 1% (or less) of all tornadoes and are going to see extreme/"incredible" instances of damage in all cases.
The rating was apparently based on that house in the first photo. It was leveled, and assuming decent construction, it meets the criteria.
Nightking2021
Member
Only about .1 to .2 % of all tornadoes are rated high-end EF4 or greater. Here is a list. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enhanced_Fujita_scale
