Significant Tornado Events

[eric11]

I forgot about this one! This thing produced some of the most severe shrubbery damage I’ve seen. Was this in the same area as the more infamous 1990 tornado?

A little bit SE to the 1990 one I think. This one mostly in Terrell co. while the 1990 one in Iraan TX

 

[Juliett Bravo Kilo]

Some dead animal in distance.
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A Power Plant or something? I'm not much familiar with these facilities and how they should be rated
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Maybe a severely mangled tractor trailer
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The famous scoured land with low-lying mesquite
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This is the fun part, I'm guessing those oil tanks that were thrown for 3 miles were actually this?
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No it threw 3 large oil tanks:

Which tornado do you think deserved an EF-5 rating?

Tuscaloosa tornado. There was some wicked damage as it was exiting city limits NE into Holt. Between Chastain Manor Apartments and the train trestle over Hurricane Creek, I think it achieved EF-5 strength. Absolutely mangled that train track and the train on it. I think there is a good...

talkweather.com

I'd love to get color photos of the scoured concrete ditch.

 

[AngelAndHisWx]

Posted this in another thread (I don’t know how to cross post, I ain’t forum savvy), but here’s a short (and I do mean short) news report of the Bakersfield Valley F4. It’s short, but it’s the only actual video of the damage I’ve seen:

 

[Juliett Bravo Kilo]

The Bakersfield v2.0 in 2009 seems haven't been talked much, this tornado was responsible for debarking cedar and mesquite trees, gravel and larger rocks were scoured from the ground, leaving bare ground.
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The mesquite trees being debarked is impressive given how durable they are; I'm not sure if this and the other tornado actually did "ground scouring" though; to me it looks just like loose sand and rock was lifted and blown away, not exactly the same as topsoil being dug up (as a side note, I'm not sure if ground scouring is always that reliable of a DI).

 

[Juliett Bravo Kilo]

So, I finally got one of the Tionesta photos I've been waiting for. It's not much - just a B&W clipping the person's mother saved from a newspaper - but still pretty exciting. It was apparently taken as the tornado was coming up over US 62, but I'm hoping I can dig up more context on it.

Any chance there are newspaper clipping of the Kane or Atlantic tornadoes?

 

[locomusic01]

Any chance there are newspaper clipping of the Kane or Atlantic tornadoes?

I've got a clipping someone sent me from the Atlantic tornado. None from Kane that I know of, but I suppose it's possible. A number of people saw the tornado but didn't fully realize what it was at first because it was very large and at least partly rain-wrapped.

 

[MNTornadoGuy]

Damage from the 5/2/1942 Pawhuska tornado. This mile-wide funnel passed through sparsely populated areas leveling farms before passing through SE Pawhuska where it virtually leveled 1-2+ blocks. 3 people were killed. This was a part of a larger outbreak of 6 F4s in the Southern/Central Plains.

 

[locomusic01]

I can't believe there's confirmed aerial video of most of the 5/31/85 damage paths (in some cases multiple videos!), yet the only one I've been able to track down is Corry. Drives me nuts. And it's not like anyone was trying to hide it at the time - a bunch of libraries, historical societies, fire stations, municipal governments, etc. hosted public screenings of different videos and whatnot. Plus I've talked to several private people who went up in small planes and took videos/photos.

I'm sure a lot of the material is still out there somewhere, but I've reached out to so many people and followed up so many leads, only to come up empty. Well, mostly empty. A couple of universities have video collections but of course they charge ridiculous fees to use/reproduce anything, and a few local news stations have video archives but they won't part with them at all.

Anyway, don't mind my rant. You can probably guess what I've spent all day doing lol

 

[Juliett Bravo Kilo]

I can't believe there's confirmed aerial video of most of the 5/31/85 damage paths (in some cases multiple videos!), yet the only one I've been able to track down is Corry. Drives me nuts. And it's not like anyone was trying to hide it at the time - a bunch of libraries, historical societies, fire stations, municipal governments, etc. hosted public screenings of different videos and whatnot. Plus I've talked to several private people who went up in small planes and took videos/photos.

I'm sure a lot of the material is still out there somewhere, but I've reached out to so many people and followed up so many leads, only to come up empty. Well, mostly empty. A couple of universities have video collections but of course they charge ridiculous fees to use/reproduce anything, and a few local news stations have video archives but they won't part with them at all.

Anyway, don't mind my rant. You can probably guess what I've spent all day doing lol

Only aerial photographs I've been able to find are from the Storm Data files on it and some news coverage of Wheatland after the tornado went through.

 

[TH2002]

I can't believe there's confirmed aerial video of most of the 5/31/85 damage paths (in some cases multiple videos!), yet the only one I've been able to track down is Corry. Drives me nuts. And it's not like anyone was trying to hide it at the time - a bunch of libraries, historical societies, fire stations, municipal governments, etc. hosted public screenings of different videos and whatnot. Plus I've talked to several private people who went up in small planes and took videos/photos.

I'm sure a lot of the material is still out there somewhere, but I've reached out to so many people and followed up so many leads, only to come up empty. Well, mostly empty. A couple of universities have video collections but of course they charge ridiculous fees to use/reproduce anything, and a few local news stations have video archives but they won't part with them at all.

Anyway, don't mind my rant. You can probably guess what I've spent all day doing lol

It frustrates me to my very core. Instead of making invaluable photos/videos/information available to the world for study and education, it's up to hardworking independent researchers like yourself to dig up what you can while universities and news stations continue to make their pockets fatter exploiting people and ultimately restricting the free exchange of information.

Ugh.

 

[locomusic01]

Only aerial photographs I've been able to find are from the Storm Data files on it and some news coverage of Wheatland after the tornado went through.

Well, I've got some aerial photos from several of the tornadoes and assorted short video clips from news coverage. It's just frustrating knowing how much more is out there and either publicly unavailable or near-impossible to locate. PennDOT (our Dept. of Transportation) and a few of the local utility companies also have photos they took to document the damage + cleanup, and I know they still have them because I talked to a reporter who got some for a TV news story they did several years ago. I've reached out to them multiple ways but still have yet to really get anywhere. I just recently got a phone number for a woman who basically runs PR for PennDOT though, so that'll be my next attempt as soon as I have time.

It frustrates me to my very core. Instead of making invaluable photos/videos/information available to the world for study and education, it's up to hardworking independent researchers like yourself to dig up what you can while universities and news stations continue to make their pockets fatter exploiting people and ultimately restricting the free exchange of information.

It sucks big-time. IIRC @AngelAndHisWx and I talked about this a while back regarding videos of Jarrell that may never be publicly available because of that type of greed. Probably the very worst example is Texas Tech's massive archives which, as I understand it, contain pretty much all of Fujita's materials from his whole career - survey photos/films, maps, notes, interview transcripts, papers, etc. But naturally it's only accessible on-site and it'd cost a small fortune to reproduce whatever you wanted to use, even if it's not for a commercial project.

 

[Lake Martin EF4]

So, I finally got one of the Tionesta photos I've been waiting for. It's not much - just a B&W clipping the person's mother saved from a newspaper - but still pretty exciting. It was apparently taken as the tornado was coming up over US 62, but I'm hoping I can dig up more context on it.

It seems the tornado was about a mile wide at the time it was taken if it was taken as it was crossing US 62. Is this photo being saved for when the actual article releases?

Also, on a similar vein to the person that asked if any clippings of Atlantic or Kane existed, are there any clippings of Moshannon or Elimsport/Watsontown?

EDIT: Finally it's hilarious to me that Page 338 of this thread began and ended with posts mentioning Tionesta photos.

 

[locomusic01]

It seems the tornado was about a mile wide at the time it was taken if it was taken as it was crossing US 62. Is this photo being saved for when the actual article releases?

Also, on a similar vein to the person that asked if any clippings of Atlantic or Kane existed, are there any clippings of Moshannon or Elimsport/Watsontown?

The tornado itself was probably a little over half a mile wide at that point, with intense inflow doing damage out beyond that. Although I guess that might depend on what you consider the "tornado," which is a whole other thing. Anyway, the funnel in the photo doesn't look huge (scale can be tricky, especially with few reference points, but I'd guess probably somewhere between a quarter- and a half-mile), which makes me wonder if it may have actually been taken as it was approaching the opposite bank across the river. Maybe even taken from near US 62 as the tornado was crossing Rt. 36. Hard to say for sure with the limited info available, although it's definitely before it really wedged out to more than a mile wide over German Hill and points east.

And yeah, since there's not much question about the validity of this one I'm keeping it for the article. I haven't come across any photos of Moshannon or Elimsport unfortunately, or any mention of there having been any (other than the woman who claims her grandparents took pictures of Moshannon). It was pretty dark by that point so I'm not sure how well any photos would've turned out anyway, except in the early part of Moshannon's path.

 

[MNTornadoGuy]

One of the most obscure tornadoes in Pacific NW history is the 6/11/1968 Wallowa National Forest tornado. This large and possibly intense tornado passed through uninhabited areas of Wallowa National Forest, 30 miles north of Enterprise, Oregon. A swath ~10 miles long and 2 miles wide was cut through forests, with probably a large portion of the damage swath being related to downbursts similar to other mountain tornadoes. 1800 acres of trees were leveled while another 1200 acres were severely damaged. An estimated ~40 million board feet of timber was destroyed which would be ~160,000 trees, a loss of $6-8 million (1968) dollars. A few loggers witnessed the event and described hearing a roar that sounded like "a hundred freight trains" and the tornado being accompanied by golf-ball-sized hail. Some of them even reported seeing a funnel cloud. This event was probably among the strongest tornadoes in Oregon history.

 

[Juliett Bravo Kilo]

One of the most obscure tornadoes in Pacific NW history is the 6/11/1968 Wallowa National Forest tornado. This large and possibly intense tornado passed through uninhabited areas of Wallowa National Forest, 30 miles north of Enterprise, Oregon. A swath ~10 miles long and 2 miles wide was cut through forests, with probably a large portion of the damage swath being related to downbursts similar to other mountain tornadoes. 1800 acres of trees were leveled while another 1200 acres were severely damaged. An estimated ~40 million board feet of timber was destroyed which would be ~160,000 trees, a loss of $6-8 million (1968) dollars. A few loggers witnessed the event and described hearing a roar that sounded like "a hundred freight trains" and the tornado being accompanied by golf-ball-sized hail. Some of them even reported seeing a funnel cloud. This event was probably among the strongest tornadoes in Oregon history.
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Lots of tornadoes that go through vast wilderness and mountainous terrain like this one seem to be 2+ miles and are often a tornado/downburst combo which likely adds to the width increase. I do wonder how much the terrain plays a factor in this.

 

[Juliett Bravo Kilo]

The tornado itself was probably a little over half a mile wide at that point, with intense inflow doing damage out beyond that. Although I guess that might depend on what you consider the "tornado," which is a whole other thing. Anyway, the funnel in the photo doesn't look huge (scale can be tricky, especially with few reference points, but I'd guess probably somewhere between a quarter- and a half-mile), which makes me wonder if it may have actually been taken as it was approaching the opposite bank across the river. Maybe even taken from near US 62 as the tornado was crossing Rt. 36. Hard to say for sure with the limited info available, although it's definitely before it really wedged out to more than a mile wide over German Hill and points east.

And yeah, since there's not much question about the validity of this one I'm keeping it for the article. I haven't come across any photos of Moshannon or Elimsport unfortunately, or any mention of there having been any (other than the woman who claims her grandparents took pictures of Moshannon). It was pretty dark by that point so I'm not sure how well any photos would've turned out anyway, except in the early part of Moshannon's path.

My guess is Moshannon's appearance was similar to Bassfield 2020; interestingly enough both of those tornadoes were 2.25 miles wide and had ~70 miles path lengths. My guess Moshannon due to being in a remote, hilly and forested area almost its whole lifespan virtually guarantees no one would have been around to witness it at its peak or for the majority of its path. Wonder if anyone was in a helicopter that day over the area....

 

[locomusic01]

Lots of tornadoes that go through vast wilderness and mountainous terrain like this one seem to be 2+ miles and are often a tornado/downburst combo which likely adds to the width increase. I do wonder how much the terrain plays a factor in this.

There are some really good papers that look at this, including this one most recently: https://journals.ametsoc.org/view/journals/atsc/77/10/jasD190321.xml

As a very general rule, tornadoes tend to expand + strengthen as they ascend slopes and contract + weaken as they descend them, although the opposite can also happen depending on its internal structure. Flow channeling through valleys and other terrain features is a big contributor when it comes to the really anomalous widths. I'm sure I've posted it before, but this effect is readily apparent at times in Moshannon even from satellite imagery, especially near the beginning of the path and after it crosses the Allegheny River. Might need to pan around a bit when you open it full-size lol

 

[locomusic01]

My guess is Moshannon's appearance was similar to Bassfield 2020; interestingly enough both of those tornadoes were 2.25 miles wide and had ~70 miles path lengths. My guess Moshannon due to being in a remote, hilly and forested area almost its whole lifespan virtually guarantees no one would have been around to witness it at its peak or for the majority of its path. Wonder if anyone was in a helicopter that day over the area....

Yeah, probably the only people who got a really good look at it once it went full beast mode were the guy I mentioned a while back at the PermaGrain nuclear facility and his family. And maybe that lady's parents if they did, in fact, see the tornado and take pictures. I wouldn't be surprised if there were only a dozen or so people in/around the entire path once it got past the Penfield area, and even in Penfield most of the people who were impacted weren't home.

Just about the only place in the entire state you could have such a monster long-track tornado without causing significant damage/casualties.

 

[Juliett Bravo Kilo]

There are some really good papers that look at this, including this one most recently: https://journals.ametsoc.org/view/journals/atsc/77/10/jasD190321.xml

As a very general rule, tornadoes tend to expand + strengthen as they ascend slopes and contract + weaken as they descend them, although the opposite can also happen depending on its internal structure. Flow channeling through valleys and other terrain features is a big contributor when it comes to the really anomalous widths. I'm sure I've posted it before, but this effect is readily apparent at times in Moshannon even from satellite imagery, especially near the beginning of the path and after it crosses the Allegheny River. Might need to pan around a bit when you open it full-size lol

Interesting about the expanding + strengthening stuff = Moshannon really blows right when it begins to enter the vast expanse of forest; perhaps that when the terrain became much more hilly and craggy?
Also, it does demonstrate to me that perhaps there is somewhat of a correlation between tornado size and intensity (at least when local terrain/geography is involved, not just by itself). I wonder how much of Dixie tornadoes have been intensified due to encountering a valley/hill/mountain/plateau, etc. and how often encountering that sort of terrain or geography made the difference in a bunch of people living or dying.

 

[Juliett Bravo Kilo]

Yeah, probably the only people who got a really good look at it once it went full beast mode were the guy I mentioned a while back at the PermaGrain nuclear facility and his family. And maybe that lady's parents if they did, in fact, see the tornado and take pictures. I wouldn't be surprised if there were only a dozen or so people in/around the entire path once it got past the Penfield area, and even in Penfield most of the people who were impacted weren't home.

Just about the only place in the entire state you could have such a monster long-track tornado without causing significant damage/casualties.

It makes me wonder if stuff similar to Moshannon has occurred in the Adirondacks or upper state New York only it wasn't ever documented because so few, if any people saw it.
Also, almost all the state of Maine north of I-95 could have a monster wedge that wouldn't kill or injure anyone as it's practically all wilderness; the occasional town, village, camping site or timber mill would be the only man-made structures it would encounter. Wonder if it's already happened and of course, was never recorded.