Significant Tornado Events

[MNTornadoGuy]

Having read all sorts of outlandish claims in terms of vehicles being lofted crazy distances by tornadoes without much evidence to back it up, is that instance from the Hackleburg tornado the longest that a vehicle has actually been confirmed transported by a tornado on record?

I know the Andover, Jarrell, Bridge Creek, Smithville, and El Reno 2011 tornadoes had some remarkable instances of such phenomenon, but I don't think any of them actually broke the mile mark.

The 1965 Primrose tornado rolled/carried a pickup truck 2 miles.

 

[Juliett Bravo Kilo]

The 1965 Primrose tornado rolled/carried a pickup truck 2 miles.

Was that in a very rural area? One thing I've noticed about feats like this is that they are usually only possible in areas with not a lot of structures in the way for a vehicle to smash into. You don't hear much about automobiles being lofted incredible distances by tornadoes that go through urban areas.
Also, I believe either the Kellerville or Allison, TX tornadoes of 1995 carried some vehicles up to 2 miles, but I'd have to double check on that.

 

[buckeye05]

Here's a hunting lodge that was completely swept away by the Cisco tornado:

Cisco wasn't the only grossly underrated tornado from the May 2015 outbreak sequence. It's been brought up before, but the EF2 rating applied to the Delmont, SD tornado is absurd. Between the grass scouring, debarking, vehicle damage, and presence of many leveled or swept away homes makes be believe that a high-end EF3 to EF4 rating should have been applied.

Also, here's the only known photo of the destructive Van, TX EF3 which was part of the same outbreak sequence:

 

[MNTornadoGuy]

Was that in a very rural area? One thing I've noticed about feats like this is that they are usually only possible in areas with not a lot of structures in the way for a vehicle to smash into. You don't hear much about automobiles being lofted incredible distances by tornadoes that go through urban areas.
Also, I believe either the Kellerville or Allison, TX tornadoes of 1995 carried some vehicles up to 2 miles, but I'd have to double check on that.

Yes it was in a rural area

 

[MNTornadoGuy]

Here's a hunting lodge that was completely swept away by the Cisco tornado:

Cisco wasn't the only grossly underrated tornado from the May 2015 outbreak sequence. It's been brought up before, but the EF2 rating applied to the Delmont, SD tornado is absurd. Between the grass scouring, debarking, vehicle damage, and presence of many leveled or swept away homes makes be believe that a high-end EF3 to EF4 rating should have been applied.

Also, here's the only known photo of the destructive Van, TX EF3 which was part of the same outbreak sequence:

The tree damage from the 2015 Cisco tornado was impressive:

 

[speedbump305]

The tree damage from the 2015 Cisco tornado was impressive:

Some of this looks EF5 worthy

 

[speedbump305]

I’m curious does anyone know if Canton EF3 had EF5 potential? i’ve seen it’s appearance and rotation and it was some of the nastiest looking i’ve ever seen

 

[speedbump305]

I know something with a purpose-built shelter happened with Vilonia; I don't think the shelter was built to proper standards but this is definitely something that happens with extremely violent tornadoes so this is likely an issue that will need to be further investigated in the future.

I will say this, while some violent tornadoes do tend to rip the doors off safe rooms or underground storm shelters.... But Hackleburg is literally the only tornado i have ever heard that not only took the door, but took the whole roof and door.

 

[Juliett Bravo Kilo]

I’m curious does anyone know if Canton EF3 had EF5 potential? i’ve seen it’s appearance and rotation and it was some of the nastiest looking i’ve ever seen

See my previous post on it: https://talkweather.com/threads/significant-tornado-events.1276/page-165#post-58225

There's some other posts by users further back in the thread, not sure I'd go with EF5 but it definitely had EF4 potential.

 

[Juliett Bravo Kilo]

It's been a while since I read FEMA's Mitigation Assessment Team report on the event, but it's puzzling that I don't recall any mention of this. The team did a pretty extensive evaluation of shelters and safe rooms throughout the area, but the only thing I remember them mentioning was one basement shelter in which the concrete floor above collapsed and killed someone inside. I think that was near Birmingham.

I'm not saying this information isn't legit (I'm not a member so I haven't read the article) - just weird that it wasn't mentioned in any of the reports. It's hard for me to imagine that happening to a purpose-built shelter, though I've learned not to rule anything out when it comes to the most violent tornadoes.

Not sure how relevant this is, but I know people who survived the Rainsville tornado recalled that the storm shelter they were in shook and almost heaved out of the soil, in fact there's a picture of it where some of the topsoil above it was partially scoured and could have briefly exposed the people inside but due to the tornado's rapid forward speed that thankfully didn't happen.

 

[speedbump305]

See my previous post on it: https://talkweather.com/threads/significant-tornado-events.1276/page-165#post-58225

There's some other posts by users further back in the thread, not sure I'd go with EF5 but it definitely had EF4 potential.

Oh no i was talking about Canton Texas

 

[Juliett Bravo Kilo]

A PDF file on some impressive instances of damage from 4/27/11:

Click to access sels12b.pdf

 

[locomusic01]

Was that in a very rural area? One thing I've noticed about feats like this is that they are usually only possible in areas with not a lot of structures in the way for a vehicle to smash into. You don't hear much about automobiles being lofted incredible distances by tornadoes that go through urban areas.
Also, I believe either the Kellerville or Allison, TX tornadoes of 1995 carried some vehicles up to 2 miles, but I'd have to double check on that.

That's probably a factor, but I'd imagine the more important thing is the effect that structures in more built-up areas have on the near-surface wind field. There are some really interesting papers on this (Lewellen especially has released at least a few), and it's a really complex relationship that can affect the flow of the tornado in a variety of different ways, but generally speaking any kind of "surface roughness" like that will cause disruptions and slow both horizontal and vertical wind speeds near the surface. Debris loading, too, will lower wind speeds.

Of course, the flipside is that more structures = more debris = greater destructive potential via missile impacts. I talked to someone who participated in some of the 5/3/99 damage surveys, and they said one of the things that stood out was you could often see this sort of chain of destruction where the first structure in an area is destroyed, which generates missiles that are hurled downstream, which enhances the destruction of subsequent structures, which generates more airborne debris, etc. And it propagates outward in kind of like a cone-ish pattern.

Anyway, that has nothing to do with vehicles lol. The point is, you'd probably expect the most extreme lofting of vehicles & other large objects to happen in open areas where there's little surface roughness and wind speeds, presumably, would be maximized. That's actually why I think tornadoes like Joplin, Tupelo, Bridge Creek, Moore, etc. are even more impressive than they might seem, because they still did things that would suggest pretty high-end velocities despite tracking through areas where you would expect near-surface winds to be slowed somewhat.

 

[Juliett Bravo Kilo]

That's probably a factor, but I'd imagine the more important thing is the effect that structures in more built-up areas have on the near-surface wind field. There are some really interesting papers on this (Lewellen especially has released at least a few), and it's a really complex relationship that can affect the flow of the tornado in a variety of different ways, but generally speaking any kind of "surface roughness" like that will cause disruptions and slow both horizontal and vertical wind speeds near the surface. Debris loading, too, will lower wind speeds.

Of course, the flipside is that more structures = more debris = greater destructive potential via missile impacts. I talked to someone who participated in some of the 5/3/99 damage surveys, and they said one of the things that stood out was you could often see this sort of chain of destruction where the first structure in an area is destroyed, which generates missiles that are hurled downstream, which enhances the destruction of subsequent structures, which generates more airborne debris, etc. And it propagates outward in kind of like a cone-ish pattern.

Anyway, that has nothing to do with vehicles lol. The point is, you'd probably expect the most extreme lofting of vehicles & other large objects to happen in open areas where there's little surface roughness and wind speeds, presumably, would be maximized. That's actually why I think tornadoes like Joplin, Tupelo, Bridge Creek, Moore, etc. are even more impressive than they might seem, because they still did things that would suggest pretty high-end velocities despite tracking through areas where you would expect near-surface winds to be slowed somewhat.

What also makes tornado like Tupelo and the like impressive is how fast they are moving, there isn't much time for duration of extreme wind speeds. Perhaps the rapid forward speed of Dixie tornadoes contributes to the destruction?

 

[pohnpei]

Lol yeah Cisco is another case of a severely underrated tornado (I'm not entirely convinced the structural damage it produced was EF3 either). Would love to find pictures of those vehicles.

View attachment 8834

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I have a vehicle damage picture of Cisco But not entirely sure it was among the objects that moved one mile. And so many debarked branches on the ground was a pretty violent feature.

 

[Juliett Bravo Kilo]

So, I found this picture of the Hackleburg tornado's path:



Really amazing how that long stretch of EF0 damage was listed as part of a single tornado instead of two separate ones and it's also amazing how it took me this long to realize how suspicious that looks. I'd love to find a similar picture of the path of Cordova and Enterprise, MS as I have a feeling they were both likely 2 or 3 separate tornadoes each that were lumped together into a single path. I know Cordova and Enterprise both have long gaps of EF0 damage in parts of their paths and many periods of where they suddenly weakened to EF1-2 strength before going back to EF4 strength, in multiple times throughout their paths, which is leading me to believe that both of these tornadoes as well as Hackleburg-Huntland were mistakenly listed as a single one.
Another thing of note is that the path for both of these tornadoes is very similar to the paths taken by the Guin and Huntsville tornadoes of the 1974 Super Outbreak. In fact, they were once mistakenly listed as a single tornado with a path length of 135 miles, but Fujita discovered that they were actually 2 separate tornadoes. The parallels between that event and this one are remarkable.

 

[speedbump305]

I remember i read somewhere that said that the Guin Tornado was likely the strongest tornado to ever hit Alabama. I disagree and that Crown goes to Hackleburg. The Hackleburg Tornado was just an Absolutely Incredible Tornado and had the words “ Extreme “ all over it. It produced some incredibly violent damage, moved at 70+ mph, had a very high injury to fatality ratio, the extreme path length, 72 fatalies. It was just an absolute incredible tornado and was the closet to the Tri State of our life time

 

[Juliett Bravo Kilo]

I remember i read somewhere that said that the Guin Tornado was likely the strongest tornado to ever hit Alabama. I disagree and that Crown goes to Hackleburg. The Hackleburg Tornado was just an Absolutely Incredible Tornado and had the words “ Extreme “ all over it. It produced some incredibly violent damage, moved at 70+ mph, had a very high injury to fatality ratio, the extreme path length, 72 fatalies. It was just an absolute incredible tornado and was the closet to the Tri State of our life time

Well according to Grazulis it was the most violent to ever hit Alabama. The problem is it's hard to find clear damage photographs of it that clearly demonstrate its intensity. There's quite a few out there that demonstrate that Guin was extremely violent but they're either grainy scanned B&W newspaper photographs, low-quality aerials or ground level photos that are from up close and make it difficult to fully contextualize what you're looking at. Grazulis likely has access to a ton of photographs that we'd all really like to see but until then Guin is still a bit of a mystery. I do think it was likely on par with Hackleburg in terms of intensity but we need more clear and reliable photographic evidence to know for sure. That said, Hackleburg was probably one of the most violent tornadoes in Alabama in a long time but I'd be careful with declaring a single most powerful tornado to hit Alabama (or any state) as their are several throughout Alabama's history that could be a contender for that title.

 

[buckeye05]

Guin scoured grass down to bare soil despite the fact that it was moving extremely fast. I think that pretty much speaks for itself.

 

[Juliett Bravo Kilo]

Guin scoured grass down to bare soil despite the fact that it was moving extremely fast. I think that pretty much speaks for itself.

I'd still like to see more pictures from it, but yeah I do remember that picture (or not)? Was it of flat ground or a hillside? And was a house and some sort of vehicle, either a car or bus in it?