Significant Tornado Events

[MNTornadoGuy]

Well, the pickup truck that was thrown ~1.7 mi in the New Wren MS “EF3” of 27 Apr 2011 was also relatively undamaged: except for a segment, it was largely intact, based on photographs posted on Tornado Talk. The incident was fairly well documented, so I assume that a similar occurrence is quite possible. Regarding intensity: the El Reno OK “EF3” on 31 May 2013 caused far less intense DIs near the location of the peak Doppler velocities of ~270 knots than the Jarrell TX F5 did as it obliterated Double Creek Estates on 27 May 1997. Given that the El Reno tornado was moving at a speed comparable to Jarrell and far more slowly than Bridge Creek (to not mention the tornadoes of 27 Apr 2011), one has to wonder whether wind speeds in Jarrell or Bridge Creek were in fact in excess of 305 knots. Maybe those “absurd” estimates of peak tornado winds from the 1950s and ‘60s were not so absurd after all.

I still doubt that tornado wind speeds are supersonic.

 

[pohnpei]

Well, ended up taking an extra day because I got an email from someone I really wanted to talk to/include in the article. Anyway, it's done now. And only two days late!

May 3, 1999 — The Bridge Creek–Moore Tornado

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Truly amazing job! One thing that Bridge Creek impressed me most was the ability to maintain its incredible strength throughout much of its 84 mins life. It strengthened so quickly and died almost suddenly with only a small period of weakening period near the Canadian River. I am also wondering was there any house near the highest DOW measurement point. I know that time of the highest winds recorded by DOW was near 6:52 PM so the tornado already went out of Bridge Creek at that time. The closest photo I have seen near this time was a screenshot at 6:54 PM.
One additional amazing video of Bridge Creek I would like to add here from Tim Marshall


And speaking Mulhall, I think there really exists a good chance that the tornado reached its peak intensity before the deployment of the DOW because DOW deployed much later in its life and winds started weakening at the beginning of the deployment. The Landsat image after the tornado also showed that it was more tight earlier its life.

Checking KFOR, I believe this was the scene the tornado carried more than 20 vehicles across the highway.

 

[locomusic01]

What's so impressive of Mulhall is that it didn't even hit the town directly (just barely grazed it) but it was still completely destroyed. The suction vortices that slingshotted around the funnel at 120+ mph reminds me of El Reno 2013. Also, the photo of Alan McClure's car has always peaked my interest as wind-damaged grass is visible in the lower left of the picture, which makes me wonder as to what the areas impacted by the core of the storm looked like (was there massive ground or grass scouring? I guess we'll never know). I have a feeling that Mulhall was actually the most violent tornado of the outbreak but like Red Rock in 1991 isn't well-known as it didn't hit any major populated areas.

I think that's probably a question of absolute peak winds vs. actual destructive power. It's entirely possible Mulhall at some point had higher wind speeds embedded within one of those subvortices, but the amount of destruction they're capable of causing is pretty limited since they're so (relatively) small and transient. Same deal with the El Reno tentacle monster - huge tornado, insane wind speeds associated w/subvortices, but most of the damage wasn't that spectacular.

The farmer whose tractor got chewed up said that there were patches of ground scouring here and there ("like a damn Brillo pad," as he put it lol) but from what I can tell it wasn't really widespread. The other person I talked to lived further north, closer to Orlando, and they said they had "circular marks" in their field. Seems that was pretty common - the few aerial photos available show trochoidal marks in at least one place:



The two aerial photos I included in the article are actually not too far from where I believe the tornado probably reached peak intensity, but there's no scouring evident there:





Based on the little information available, my best guess is that it probably peaked just a bit northeast of the arrow:

 

[andyhb]

In this tweet might be the only pic I've ever seen of the Dover tornado.

 

[locomusic01]

Those are the pictures I included in my article lol. Here are some others of the tornado itself:

 

[locomusic01]

Speaking of which, from what I was able to find, Dover is the only other tornado from 5/3/99 that produced significant, widespread scouring. At least one car was thrown > 1/2 mile, and a few livestock trailers were just totally obliterated. And obviously the damage to the cellar is pretty impressive, even if it wasn't exactly well-built.

Definitely a legit violent tornado despite not really hitting that much.

 

[MNTornadoGuy]

Speaking of which, from what I was able to find, Dover is the only other tornado from 5/3/99 that produced significant, widespread scouring. At least one car was thrown > 1/2 mile, and a few livestock trailers were just totally obliterated. And obviously the damage to the cellar is pretty impressive, even if it wasn't exactly well-built.

Definitely a legit violent tornado despite not really hitting that much.

I wouldn't be surprised if it reached EF5 intensity

 

[Marshal79344]

Speaking of which, from what I was able to find, Dover is the only other tornado from 5/3/99 that produced significant, widespread scouring. At least one car was thrown > 1/2 mile, and a few livestock trailers were just totally obliterated. And obviously the damage to the cellar is pretty impressive, even if it wasn't exactly well-built.

Definitely a legit violent tornado despite not really hitting that much.

I wonder if there are any rural images from the area, quite some scouring NE of town for sure

 

[Juliett Bravo Kilo]

Speaking of which, from what I was able to find, Dover is the only other tornado from 5/3/99 that produced significant, widespread scouring. At least one car was thrown > 1/2 mile, and a few livestock trailers were just totally obliterated. And obviously the damage to the cellar is pretty impressive, even if it wasn't exactly well-built.

Definitely a legit violent tornado despite not really hitting that much.

Seems like this outbreak had a lot more violent tornadoes (particularly violent nocturnal tornadoes) then most people realize, given Bridge Creek-Moore (understandably) stole all of the publicity. I'd love to find more visual documentation from Dover as well as Mulhall.

 

[eric11]

That second picture is actually the mangled remains of a pickup truck. Apparently those were the largest pieces that remained. The rest of the truck was granulated into even smaller pieces or simply never found.

I used to have a picture of what the truck looked like before the tornado... but unfortunately I can't seem to find that anymore.

Yeah I lately find out that it was a truck, the tractor I mentioned was located far away from here.
The photographer mentioned the truck was red before, makes me wonder if these pieces belonged to it.

The Case IH400 Tractor weighs around 22 tons actually was moved/dragged a little bit but ramained intact

Another semi

 

[pohnpei]

The damage of Chapman tornado's first peak north of Abliene often gets overlooked. This house near indy/2700 avenue didn't mentioned by NWS and obviously it was swept clean. The wind-rowing near bottom of the picture was violent.



Trucks were mangled into balls and threw large distance near this place.


There were many heavy machines in Ken Wood's farm. One of 50000lbs Case IH400 was pushed across the field with the mangled 10000lbs 64 chevy truck nearby.

some additional pieces from several trucks.




This was a Toyota highlander before the tornado.

A blue pickup truck before the tornado

a planter before the tornado

 

[Casuarina Head]

The damage of Chapman tornado's first peak north of Abliene often gets overlooked. This house near indy/2700 avenue didn't mentioned by NWS and obviously it was swept clean. The wind-rowing near bottom of the picture was violent.
View attachment 9510

Is that poured concrete or cement in the background? If so, it seems to have broken off twice near the upper centre of the photograph.

 

[MNTornadoGuy]

Is that poured concrete or cement in the background? If so, it seems to have broken off twice near the upper centre of the photograph.

The back of the house appears to be a wood wall and it is one of those homes with an exposed basement in the back if that’s what you are talking about?

 

[TH2002]

The 6/22/15 Coal City, Illinois tornado definitely warranted a rating higher than EF3

These homes were well-bolted to their foundations

 

[MNTornadoGuy]

One of the most underrated violent tornadoes in Minnesota history is the 1881 New Ulm tornado. Starting in Bird Island this tornado family moved SE through rural areas where it was extremely violent. Five entire farms were completely swept away with debris being carried for miles. In the small towns/townships of Wellington, West Newton, Palmyra, and Cairo the devastation was immense. One large two-story frame house was completely swept away with debris being carried for over a mile, homes literally vanished in West Newton, potential ground scouring occurred as all grains/corn was destroyed and "the ground was as clean as in early spring," farm machinery was carried nearly half a mile, and at one location "every tree on the fine large groove surround the house was as completely stripped of every particle of bark as could have been done with a knife." As the tornado approached New Ulm, it was described as two immense black waterspouts with a cloud of debris extending halfway up the funnel. The tornado started to rope out as it came towards town and curved to the left taking it straight through the western side of town. Grass and vegetables were scoured from the ground just outside town, homes were swept away both outside and inside the town, tree trunks were completely debarked, and people were thrown considerable distances. The tornado would dissipate 3 miles S of New Ulm. 6 people were killed in New Ulm while 13 people were killed in rural areas.

 

[TH2002]

One of the most underrated violent tornadoes in Minnesota history is the 1881 New Ulm tornado. Starting in Bird Island this tornado family moved SE through rural areas where it was extremely violent. Five entire farms were completely swept away with debris being carried for miles. In the small towns/townships of Wellington, West Newton, Palmyra, and Cairo the devastation was immense. One large two-story frame house was completely swept away with debris being carried for over a mile, homes literally vanished in West Newton, potential ground scouring occurred as all grains/corn was destroyed and "the ground was as clean as in early spring," farm machinery was carried nearly half a mile, and at one location "every tree on the fine large groove surround the house was as completely stripped of every particle of bark as could have been done with a knife." As the tornado approached New Ulm, it was described as two immense black waterspouts with a cloud of debris extending halfway up the funnel. The tornado started to rope out as it came towards town and curved to the left taking it straight through the western side of town. Grass and vegetables were scoured from the ground just outside town, homes were swept away both outside and inside the town, tree trunks were completely debarked, and people were thrown considerable distances. The tornado would dissipate 3 miles S of New Ulm. 6 people were killed in New Ulm while 13 people were killed in rural areas.

Descriptions sound a lot like the 1893 Pomeroy tornado and 1895 Halstead tornado.

 

[Marshal79344]

I found some rare photos of damage while sifting through lots of newspapers from the March 21, 1932 Super Tornado Outbreak that I'd like to share in this thread.

A church swept away by the Ringgold - Conasauga Tornado



The remains of a home where a mother and her two children were killed



Another destroyed building from the same tornado



Three aerials of stricken Northport, AL



An image of a home swept away in rural Plantersville, AL



Sylacauga, AL after it was hit directly by an F4 Tornado



Here are some photos from the Thorsby, AL area. Three consecutive tornadoes (not two like Grazulis had) were reported by local newspapers to have passed through areas near Thorsby in quick succession. Each tornado was stronger than the last and slightly further to the north. These images are from the final of the three, a mile-wide F5 (in my opinion) wedge tornado that swept away subdivisions north of Thorsby, in the Lomax and "Union Grove" areas. The same tornado destroyed some transmission towers before moving into the deep forests beyond the Coosa River.

 

[locomusic01]

Nice finds! It's a shame 3/21/32 isn't better documented because it's almost certainly deserving of the "super outbreak" title. I've got some stuff I need to sort through at some point, but there's not nearly as much out there as you'd think for such a high-end event. IIRC, the University of Alabama has a collection of photos, but most haven't been digitized and are only available in-person.

I think it's UofA, anyway. Been a while since I checked.

 

[Juliett Bravo Kilo]

Nice finds! It's a shame 3/21/32 isn't better documented because it's almost certainly deserving of the "super outbreak" title. I've got some stuff I need to sort through at some point, but there's not nearly as much out there as you'd think for such a high-end event. IIRC, the University of Alabama has a collection of photos, but most haven't been digitized and are only available in-person.

I think it's UofA, anyway. Been a while since I checked.

The 1932 Dixie outbreak is on par with the 1884 Enigma outbreak and the April 20, 1920 outbreak as one I wish there was much more documentation on, as they all were likely potential "super outbreaks" whose full potential will never be known and likely lost to time.

 

[buckeye05]

The 6/22/15 Coal City, Illinois tornado definitely warranted a rating higher than EF3

Hmmm idk. These type of cookie-cutter homes pop up pretty much overnight in my area as the suburbs sprawl out. They built them cheap and fast. It doesn't really matter if there are bolts when the structure itself is frail and lightweight. The presence of collapsed walls left completely intact, and the cars left parked on the garage slabs say a lot imo. The DAT also shows trees behind some of these home that weren't even defoliated.

This one strongly reminds me of the Hugo, MN tornado of 2008. That one left power lines and trees standing in the back yards of leveled homes between residential streets. Those homes were bolted, but that clearly wasn't a violent tornado. Now this isn't exactly typical, but sometimes even when homes are anchored, the context issues win out.