Significant Tornado Events

[MNTornadoGuy]

The tornadoes in Funing have refreshed my shock again and again. This is Beichen village. The trees and low plants are almost completely skinned. In addition, a big car of the factory not far from the village is thrown on the house. In my mind, this is the damage of high-end ef4 and even EF5

Is that ground scouring in the second image?

 

[locomusic01]

I thought Bridge Creek-Moore was a slow mover, given that it was on the ground for almost 90 minutes but only covered 38 miles. Did it move faster in the Bridge Creek area or did it cover more distance than what is commonly reported? Obviously it was faster than Jarrell but I didn't think it was "brisk" as you said in terms of forward speed.

"Brisk" in comparison to Jarrell. It averaged just a shade under 27 mph through Bridge Creek, touching down at 6:23 pm SW of Amber and crossing the 16th St overpass at 7:02 pm (17.35 miles in 39 minutes). Everyone I talked to in the area estimated the tornado lasted between one and two minutes.

 

[pohnpei]

Is that ground scouring in the second image?

I think very little chance these were actual ground scouring beacuse the overall surroundings was not that muddy, to my view. More likely it was due to the aftermath cleanup, just like Cookeville.

 

[MNTornadoGuy]

The tornadoes in Funing have refreshed my shock again and again. This is Beichen village. The trees and low plants are almost completely skinned. In addition, a big car of the factory not far from the village is thrown on the house. In my mind, this is the damage of high-end ef4 and even EF5

Also, that structural damage doesn't really look more impressive than the EF4 175 MPH leveled masonry homes along the tornado's path. The debarking is impressive though.

 

[zvl5316]

Is that ground scouring in the second image?

1969 Tianjin tornado seems to have some nasty scouring in corn field

 

[MNTornadoGuy]

1969 Tianjin tornado seems to have some nasty scouring in corn field

View attachment 9536

Speaking of China tornadoes producing ground scouring, are there any other damage photographs from the 2005 Chaoyang City tornado as that tornado appears to have produced some decent ground scouring and intense debarking?

 

[zvl5316]

Speaking of China tornadoes producing ground scouring, are there any other damage photographs from the 2005 Chaoyang City tornado as that tornado appears to have produced some decent ground scouring and intense debarking?

The only nasty damage figure of Chaoyang 2005 tornado is this. I am not sure the bald land surface was caused by scouring or human activities. The offical report mentioned the tornado took a piece of 1.5m×10m pitch from the road but there was no figure. I guess Chaoyang tornado is 'hidden' by another catastrophe in northeast China attacted most of media's attention that day: more than 100 elementary school students perished in flash flood caused by extreme heavy rain in Shalan Town, Heilongjiang Province.

 

[locomusic01]

So, I have no idea how it would work, but I was thinking about something last night: maybe at some point we could tackle one of the huge outbreaks together. I've never approached them because it's just way too much to juggle along with work and personal commitments at stuff (even the Flint–Worcester outbreak took hundreds of hours and ended up ~16,000 words, and that's a fairly small event), but it might be more manageable with several people working on it. Might even be able to create some other stuff to go along with it (not sure what - maps? videos? whatever).

As you can tell, I haven't really thought it out much and I dunno how the logistics of it would work or anything. But it's something to think about, and it's probably the only way it'd be possible to tackle one of the huge events.

On a side note, apparently my Palm Sunday article is < 6,000 words. What in the world? Bridge Creek–Moore was 15,000. That seems like a ripoff.

 

[Austin Dawg]

I was thinking about doing a tornado history blog at one point but I decided against it as I really don't have the time and my writing skills are pretty meager and I'm really one for interviewing.

I had thought of trying to write some things myself. My writing skills are ok but I had complications from surgeries for stenosis in my cervical spine and cannot type well or with any speed. So far, I haven't found a voice-to-text program that I can get to work well enough or that I afford. Dragon is the best with a $500 price tag.

 

[MNTornadoGuy]

So, I have no idea how it would work, but I was thinking about something last night: maybe at some point we could tackle one of the huge outbreaks together. I've never approached them because it's just way too much to juggle along with work and personal commitments at stuff (even the Flint–Worcester outbreak took hundreds of hours and ended up ~16,000 words, and that's a fairly small event), but it might be more manageable with several people working on it. Might even be able to create some other stuff to go along with it (not sure what - maps? videos? whatever).

As you can tell, I haven't really thought it out much and I dunno how the logistics of it would work or anything. But it's something to think about, and it's probably the only way it'd be possible to tackle one of the huge events.

On a side note, apparently my Palm Sunday article is < 6,000 words. What in the world? Bridge Creek–Moore was 15,000. That seems like a ripoff.

Maybe a good way to do that would be through a discord server or something similar.

 

[buckeye05]

So, I have no idea how it would work, but I was thinking about something last night: maybe at some point we could tackle one of the huge outbreaks together. I've never approached them because it's just way too much to juggle along with work and personal commitments at stuff (even the Flint–Worcester outbreak took hundreds of hours and ended up ~16,000 words, and that's a fairly small event), but it might be more manageable with several people working on it. Might even be able to create some other stuff to go along with it (not sure what - maps? videos? whatever).

As you can tell, I haven't really thought it out much and I dunno how the logistics of it would work or anything. But it's something to think about, and it's probably the only way it'd be possible to tackle one of the huge events.

On a side note, apparently my Palm Sunday article is < 6,000 words. What in the world? Bridge Creek–Moore was 15,000. That seems like a ripoff.

I think a collaborative effort makes sense, given the skills of many armchair researchers here on this forum alone. I personally really enjoy writing about subjects that interest me, and tornado history definitely falls into that category. Also currently looking into newspaper archive subscriptions to expand my resources. If it came down to a group effort, I’d love to assist.

 

[Juliett Bravo Kilo]

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:

Silly question but are those trochoidal marks from the tornado itself or from a piece of debris that got centrifuged around a suction vortex and scraped around rows of crops or soil?

 

[Juliett Bravo Kilo]

Yeah, I'd never heard about the manhole covers until I started interviewing people and a couple of them brought it up independently. Definitely not something you see very often. Also, I just realized I have a ton of photos that I totally forgot about. Probably will update the article to include them tomorrow, but I'll post some of them here for now.

Some of the very worst damage in Moore/OKC occurred here along SW 131st Terrace in Eastlake Estates:



Several apartments at Emerald Springs totally destroyed:



From Southern Hills in Bridge Creek - kinda speaks for itself, I think:



Same area. Among other things, you can see a utility pole snapped off at like two feet:



Just an absolute mangle of, well.. pretty much everything. This is very close to where Kara Wiese was killed:



Debarked tree in the same area:



Thought this one was pretty cool because it shows how rapidly the tornado reintensified. It crossed the Canadian River just beyond the upper left corner of the photo (the little grove of trees that's damaged is a few hundred yards north of the river), weakening as it went. By the time it got to S Drexel Ave (above center), it had already started producing significant scouring & vehicle damage again. That's a distance of just over half a mile.

This picture reminds me of Jarrell, with everything being mangled into a pile, only difference is less topsoil covering everything. I do wonder what would have happened in Bridge Creek or Moore if the tornado moved through them at the speeds Jarrell did. *Shudders*

 

[locomusic01]

Silly question but are those trochoidal marks from the tornado itself or from a piece of debris that got centrifuged around a suction vortex and scraped around rows of crops or soil?

They're from the suction vortices themselves. Fujita used to call them ground swirl patterns and famously used them to come up with some.. let's say interesting wind speed estimates. Usually (though not always) heavy pieces of debris get centrifuged out before making it all the way around the vortex, so they just leave long, arcing marks.

 

[Casuarina Head]

Guin especially, if he had to just focus on one tornado from outbreak, or the whole nocturnal sequence that occurred in Northern Alabama, as the stuff in Ohio, Indiana, Kentucky, Tennessee and other Midwestern states seems to have been much better-documented or more quickly transferred online than the Alabama tornadoes (Again Guin, in particular).

When you go to NWS's page on the 40th anniversary of the 1974 Super Outbreak, for the Alabama portion with damage photographs you come to a page that has this image:

Really frustrating. Perhaps locomusic could track down a resident of Guin or local historian that is sitting on a ton of damage photographs we'd all really like to see.

If I recall correctly, J. B. Elliott, now deceased, had access to many photographs from Guin. Maybe his relatives/associates should be reached.

 

[WIL9287]

If I recall correctly, J. B. Elliott, now deceased, had access to many photographs from Guin. Maybe his relatives/associates should be reached.

Tornado Talk does have access to J.B.'s photos.

 

[eric11]

11th Anniversary of the 5/10/2010 OK outbreak, one of the largest tornado outbreak in Oklahoma history. Despite the extent and severity of this outbreak, It's a little weird that hardly could I found lots of damage photos related to this outbreak though, there were tons of nasty couplets moving into big cities like Moore and Norman EF4.
I have some damage photos of the Norman-Little Axe EF4 which I believe I haven't published anywhere before, quite a typical violent to me. However, as for the Moore-Choctaw one, I highly doubt the EF4 rating.



Edit: The radar of Moore and Norman EF4( left one). Norman and its sis/bro actually reminds me a little bit Pilger-esque.
Pic quote from Brandon_Wx

 

[MNTornadoGuy]

One of the most intense European tornadoes is the 1957 Robecco Pavese tornado. It is officially rated as an F4 (with being noted as a possible F5) but the damage it produced is more impressive than what I've seen from most of the official European F5s. This narrow but violent tornado cut a >10 km long path through Italian villages and the countryside. Brick/masonry buildings including homes were leveled with some being swept away, a church bell was thrown 500 meters, bodies were carried several hundred meters, vehicles were mangled, trees were debarked, and vineyards were destroyed.

 

[CheeselandSkies]

11th Anniversary of the 5/10/2010 OK outbreak, one of the largest tornado outbreak in Oklahoma history. Despite the extent and severity of this outbreak, It's a little weird that hardly could I found lots of damage photos related to this outbreak though, there were tons of nasty couplets moving into big cities like Moore and Norman EF4.
I have some damage photos of the Norman-Little Axe EF4 which I believe I haven't published anywhere before, quite a typical violent to me. However, as for the Moore-Choctaw one, I highly doubt the EF4 rating.
View attachment 9542View attachment 9543
View attachment 9544View attachment 9545
View attachment 9546View attachment 9547View attachment 9548View attachment 9549
Edit: The radar of Moore and Norman EF4( left one). Norman and its sis/bro actually reminds me a little bit Pilger-esque.
Pic quote from Brandon_Wx
View attachment 9550
View attachment 9551

That was a bit of an odd outbreak. Rather localized but certainly verified the high risk with at least three EF3+. Much like what occurred the next year, it was one of those "bad but could have been much worse" situations, and yet another instance where the southern part of the central Oklahoma metro area was affected by a violent tornado.

 

[buckeye05]

One of the most intense European tornadoes is the 1957 Robecco Pavese tornado. It is officially rated as an F4 (with being noted as a possible F5) but the damage it produced is more impressive than what I've seen from most of the official European F5s. This narrow but violent tornado cut a >10 km long path through Italian villages and the countryside. Brick/masonry buildings including homes were leveled with some being swept away, a church bell was thrown 500 meters, bodies were carried several hundred meters, vehicles were mangled, trees were debarked, and vineyards were destroyed.

I remember reading about this one as a kid. It always thought it was striking how narrow yet violent it was. Italian Elie pretty much.