Significant Tornado Events

[buckeye05]

So I recently picked up a copy of Year of the Storms: The Destructive Kansas Weather of 1990 By Howard Inglish and I must say, it's a really good book. Highly recommend it for anyone looking for nonfiction meteorology books, and it also portrays just how violent Kansas' 1990 tornado season really was.

Some tidbits I found interesting about Hesston, Goessel and Emporia:

Hesston Decorating Center was completely destroyed. The steel frame of the building was crunched and mangled, and at Troyer's Furniture Restoration steel beams were "torn from the concrete in which they had been set". Numerous homes were swept away (including at least one that was purportedly well constructed) in rural areas outside of Hesston, and the basement of the home where Judy and Jennifer DeWitt survived the tornado was "mud-drenched" (scouring?)

Goessel swept away a well-anchored home belonging to Linden and Dorene Thiessen. The home was not even two years old, as the couple had just rebuilt after losing their previous home (a mobile home) to a fire in 1987.

Yet another tornado (Emporia on June 7) swept an anchor bolted home down to its basement while other homes were leveled. For some reason that tornado was stuck with an F2 rating... I'll let that speak for itself.

There are pictures of Hesston Decorating Center, and the homes in Goessel and Emporia in the book, though not sure if I can post them here (if I can I'll update my post to include them). I also don't wanna spoil the entire book lol

And while on the topic of Hesston this appears to be a swept away home at first glance, though I strongly suspect the second photo is of the same home before cleanup

View attachment 13567

That second photo is significant. It’s the only pic I’ve seen from Hesston that shows anchor bolts.

 

[TH2002]

That second photo is significant. It’s the only pic I’ve seen from Hesston that shows anchor bolts.

There are some photos from Hesston that show anchor bolts, including this one (though this is an industrial building, Hesston Decorating Center IIRC, not a house)

 

[TH2002]

Some other finds from Hesston
The remains of Hesston Concrete

Combine harvester

Bob Good residence

 

[Juliett Bravo Kilo]

Some other finds from Hesston
The remains of Hesston Concrete

Combine harvester

Bob Good residence

I can't help but wonder if cleanup has occurred already for many of these pics.
Also, the Hesston factory doesn't appear to have been a steel-framed structure.
I'm still iffy about Hesston being an F5, it's definitely a more compelling case then Goessel.

 

[TH2002]

I can't help but wonder if cleanup has occurred already for many of these pics.
Also, the Hesston factory doesn't appear to have been a steel-framed structure.
I'm still iffy about Hesston being an F5, it's definitely a more compelling case then Goessel.

The photos of the combine harvester are dated March 14, so I highly doubt it was mangled by bulldozers.
I will say there is definite cleanup in most of the available photos of home damage, though multiple sources mention that some of the homes that were swept away lost their subflooring. However, the only pre-cleanup photos of destroyed homes I can find are the one I posted above, and these two (note the INTACT subfloors in the second photo):

IMO the most impressive demonstration of Hesston's strength is what it did to a pickup truck on the Bontrager farm. It took them three months to find the vehicle and when they did, this is what they found. Most of the vehicle was never recovered.

It's also noteworthy that when the tornado passed S of Burrton shortly after crossing into Harvey County, it struck the Hutchinson Water Sports Club; a dock and sailboat were thrown and never recovered.

 

[Juliett Bravo Kilo]

The photos of the combine harvester are dated March 14, so I highly doubt it was mangled by bulldozers.
I will say there is definite cleanup in most of the available photos of home damage, though multiple sources mention that some of the homes that were swept away lost their subflooring. However, the only pre-cleanup photos of destroyed homes I can find are the one I posted above, and these two (note the INTACT subfloors in the second photo):

View attachment 13568


IMO the most impressive demonstration of Hesston's strength is what it did to a pickup truck on the Bontrager farm. It took them three months to find the vehicle and when they did, this is what they found. Most of the vehicle was never recovered.
View attachment 13569
It's also noteworthy that when the tornado passed S of Burrton shortly after crossing into Harvey County, it struck the Hutchinson Water Sports Club; a dock and sailboat were thrown and never recovered.

Yeah the combine is also impressive; it looks like it was entangled with the steel frame of a building. Also, I think it mangled a pickup truck at the cement factory as well. Yeah, I think it deserved an F5 rating, not sure why some other posters don't think so.
Now Goessel....yeah, no. No clue what Fujita's logic was with that one (it reminds me of Plainfield, in that its F5 rating was largely derived from crop/soil damage and also near the end of his career.

 

[Juliett Bravo Kilo]

So found some more footage of Guin devastation via TV....one an anniversary special one a history documentary.

1. The opening 10 seconds have what looks like some archival footage of Guin damage...not much after that:



2. Around 4:50 or so is when you can see some pretty crazy devastation; looks like some large industrial buildings were completely levelled and partially swept away:



Again, someone, somewhere is sitting on a massive collection of photographs we'd all love to see. Hopefully we'll get to by April 3, 2024 or so.

 

[Austin Dawg]

So found some more footage of Guin devastation via TV....one an anniversary special one a history documentary.

1. The opening 10 seconds have what looks like some archival footage of Guin damage...not much after that:



2. Around 4:50 or so is when you can see some pretty crazy devastation; looks like some large industrial buildings were completely levelled and partially swept away:



Again, someone, somewhere is sitting on a massive collection of photographs we'd all love to see. Hopefully we'll get to by April 3, 2024 or so.

That was such a long night in Smithville. I lived on the extreme south end of town with several huge fields to my SW.
I saw at least two storms that looked like they had tight wall clouds in the area where the 2011 F5 initially touched down. Most ever bad storm came into town at that spot and from that direction We had heard about Guin and the others and were scared to death with no storm shelter.

That afternoon when the first thunderstorms rolled in I saw the largest hail I have ever seen. It was brief but it was the size of a Blue Dot softball. I know because I picked one up and it split into three ragged pieces the moment I did. I'm sure because I pitched those Blue Dots balls through my late 20's and my 30's.

 

[MNTornadoGuy]

I find Hesston to have been a pretty violent tornado. Even if it wasn’t as strong as some other F/EF5s it was still extremely violent.

 

[buckeye05]

Honestly, in the past I haven’t considered Hesston to be a legit F5, but after seeing a lot of these photos, I have the change my stance. It definitely meets the criteria. Good example of how the damage that is most representative of extreme intensity is not necessarily the focus of photographers.

 

[MNTornadoGuy]

Damage from Moore 2013 at the Orr Family Farm. Intense ground scouring occurred in the field south of the main farm and large steel tanks were thrown up to a half-mile.

 

[buckeye05]

Damage from Moore 2013 at the Orr Family Farm. Intense ground scouring occurred in the field south of the main farm and large steel tanks were thrown up to a half-mile.

View attachment 13576

Truly extreme contextual damage, almost Jarrell-like and yet the tornado wasn’t stalled out here. It had decent forward speed, so it did this extreme damage relatively quickly. In fact, at least one the DAT survey points at Orr Farm mentions that context here suggested EF5, but there weren’t any buildings for an EF5 rating to be assigned.

 

[MNTornadoGuy]

Truly extreme contextual damage, almost Jarrell-like and yet the tornado wasn’t stalled out here. It had decent forward speed, so it did this extreme damage relatively quickly. In fact, at least one the DAT survey points at Orr Farm mentions that context here suggested EF5, but there weren’t any buildings for an EF5 rating to be assigned.

Gabe Garfield who saw damage from tornadoes such as Harper said the worst tornado damage he has personally seen was in the Orr Farm area.

 

[MNTornadoGuy]

More photos from the area:

Other photos from the Moore tornado:

 

[Juliett Bravo Kilo]

Honestly, in the past I haven’t considered Hesston to be a legit F5, but after seeing a lot of these photos, I have the change my stance. It definitely meets the criteria. Good example of how the damage that is most representative of extreme intensity is not necessarily the focus of photographers.

And yet Fujita considered Goessel the more intense of the two solely because of cycloidal scouring when it did damage that was no more then mid-end F4. Perhaps similar logic was used with rating Plainfield F5 solely due to crop scouring.

 

[MNTornadoGuy]

And yet Fujita considered Goessel the more intense of the two solely because of cycloidal scouring when it did damage that was no more then mid-end F4. Perhaps similar logic was used with rating Plainfield F5 solely due to crop scouring.

I’ve heard that he attempted to calculate the wind speed from the cycloidal marks (somewhat similar to that infamous newspaper article from the 1968 Charles City F5) and based the rating on that.

 

[buckeye05]

I’ve heard that he attempted to calculate the wind speed from the cycloidal marks (somewhat similar to that infamous newspaper article from the 1968 Charles City F5) and based the rating on that.

I’ve heard this is where the 300 MPH estimate in Xenia may have originated. Obviously, this practice was found not to be legitimate somewhere along the line, as you never hear about this method being used anymore, and Xenia did not produce damage that was consistent with other top-end F5/EF5 events.

 

[MNTornadoGuy]

I’ve heard this is where the 300 MPH estimate in Xenia may have originated. Obviously, this practice was found not to be legitimate somewhere along the line, as you never hear about this method being used anymore, and Xenia did not produce damage that was consistent with other top-end F5/EF5 events.

I’ve yet to see any extremely violent contextual damage from Xenia such as severe mangling of vehicles, complete debarking of trees, ground scouring, etc.

 

[buckeye05]

I’ve yet to see any extremely violent contextual damage from Xenia such as severe mangling of vehicles, complete debarking of trees, ground scouring, etc.

Yup exactly. I even grew up in that area and have talked to many survivors, scanned many, many photos and still came to the same conclusion.

 

[Juliett Bravo Kilo]

Yup exactly. I even grew up in that area and have talked to many survivors, scanned many, many photos and still came to the same conclusion.

One thing about 4/3/74 that's always struck me as strange is there isn't a whole lot of accounts involving ground/topspoil scouring asphalt/pavement scouring (if any). I'm sure it happened but for whatever reason there isn't much documentation of it available. I know at least one of the Tanner tornadoes dug up soil around the Tennesse River and plastered it against trees but that's to be expected with river-loosened soil (probably quicksand for all we know). It wouldn't surprise me if Guin scoured asphalt/pavement and topsoil but for whatever reason no photographs of that are available.