I think on the old thread a picture of the school was shown and a user observed that it looked like someone had taken a giant knife to a section of the school; the damage was very narrow (only a section of the building) but it was violent and some of the debris from the school looked to have been wind-rowed for a considerable distance.
Yup. It wasn’t a very large tornado but it was powerful. Your memory is correct; the tornado sliced through the center of the building, flattening the middle of it, but leaving the opposite ends of the structure damaged but standing for the most part.
On radar the Joplin tornado went from a disorganized blob of convection to an extremely well defined hook echo and debris ball in about two scans.
So the home damage is probably mid to high-end EF4 intensity.
It was rated low-end EF4. Homes had CMU foundations and only one lost its subflooring. Given some of the contextual damage though, I think an argument for mid-range EF4 can be made.
Well thank you because home damage from a tornado can be the most difficult to rate.
The contextual damage definitely does suggest that it was a violent tornado.
I actually started a bit of work on this outbreak before I eventually decided on 5/31/85. Really fascinating - probably one of the more unique events on record given the terrain. The damage around Pleasant Hill in Shinnston (along the banks of the river) reminds me of New Richmond. There was also a violent tornado the day before in Belmont, WI.
The June 23, 1944 tornado outbreak is one of the most interesting tornado outbreaks. It was extremely impressive and rare with multiple long-tracked violent tornadoes in the central Appalachian mountains which doesn't experience tornadoes much. The environment was impressive with dewpoints in the upper 60s to mid-70s, a deepening surface low (~10 mb in ~9 hours), a strong (>64 kt) mid-level jet streak moving into the region, and a likely strong (>40 kt) low-level jet.
The first violent tornado of the outbreak was a long-tracked family of ~3 tornadoes that tracked through WV, PA, and MD. Numerous homes were leveled by this tornado, especially in Greene County PA. 30 people were killed by this tornado family, 22 of which died in Greene County.
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The second violent tornado devastated communities and farms south of Pittsburgh PA. Multi-story dwellings were destroyed while single-story homes were leveled according to Grazulis. 17 people were killed along a 50-mile path.
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The third violent, most well-known, strongest, and the deadliest tornado of this outbreak was the Shinnston tornado. This tornado killed 100-103 people, 72 of them in 10-mile long area which included Shinnston. Homes were completely leveled and swept away, trees were debarked, a cookstove was reportedly carried 3 miles, street-car tracks were reportedly twisted, a steel radio tower was bent in half, ground scouring occurred as "all vegetation was removed and the mineral soil was exposed," and vehicles were mangled. Some people consider this tornado to be a borderline F5.
There was scouring in some areas, especially on exposed slopes, but I think that's just what the ground looks like normally. You can see the same sort of appearance here before the tornado, especially on the hill on the left side:
No, I don't think it is ground scouring. The area where scouring was reported was near a brick home that was destroyed.
