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Equus

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Yeah honestly Wilkin was my thought the whole time watching the videos too; they're surprisingly similar. Andy Gabrielson I think took the iconic Wilkin video, it's on a chase DVD I have. Those super skinny violent drill bits seem to be by far more common on the high plains and Canada with high LCLs and put on quite a show. Very slow moving skinny high based funnels with amazing visibility is the literal exact opposite of Dixie haha
 

eric11

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One event which shows enough similarities with Dalton MN EF4 is the Storm lake IA F3 happened on 6/11/2004.This tornado was only 150 yrd wide and had a beautiful white cone shape,it completely swept away a poorly anchored cinder block farmhouse and nearby fields were scoured,similar to Dalton.When this tornado crossing a county road,Tim samaras put his TOTO-2 in the middle of the road and the probe went directly into the funnel ,photographed rare footage inside the tornado.
ab474a5121468fd9bb0e2c4a103535b.jpgIMG_20200711_032827.jpgThere's some old footage shows Tim calculated this tornado's wind speed according to the video inside the funnel and how much angle hardwood pine trees bent towards the funnel but I can't find it now.-1c849b7d1bec23b4fce9ed4cb516d064.jpg-341fb2a95851c3dda8c1c65fd049be98.jpg
 

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Another event happened just the next day to the storm lake IA one and was much more well-known,the mulvane KS F3 or I'd like to call it rainbow tornado.This tornado was between 150 to 200yrd wide,lots of famous video clip captured this long skinny drillbit tornado tearing houses accompanied by beautiful rainbow and purple lightning, a 1967 Shelby Mustang was thrown 1/4 mile,and another white truck was thrown for unknown distances and both mangled beyond recognition,three poorly anchored frame house was completely demolished.This event also reminds that whether those skinny,drillbit tornadoes are much capable of doing violent vehicle damage(Dalton,pampa,Eile)than those big dixie wedges.586578ae86088b27396f3504f61b28d3.jpg7a280590db7e84dcb559cb58f1d2a6dd.jpg666cfa7878f1c5a70641eba66e50280a.jpg4aae56e9f0327a22b35334929b2e1378.jpg2acad50041e3d920d16875cacde6f92f.jpg-5cfbed9a61d47d8e690f92929f23c07e.jpg-2bb39e678784b9fbcfba778b9fa0a00d.jpg-747b6208e0c17b90ff8b638f780b2418.jpg
 

Equus

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Always thought that Mulvane was a pretty decent F4 candidate given vehicle damage and homes completely removed, a case could certainly be made for it
 

eric11

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Yeah honestly Wilkin was my thought the whole time watching the videos too; they're surprisingly similar. Andy Gabrielson I think took the iconic Wilkin video, it's on a chase DVD I have. Those super skinny violent drill bits seem to be by far more common on the high plains and Canada with high LCLs and put on quite a show. Very slow moving skinny high based funnels with amazing visibility is the literal exact opposite of Dixie haha
Yeah,Andy Gabrielson's video was classic and fantastic but only one pity,his video was too short! I wonder whether he had a full lifecycle video cuz wilkin stayed on the ground for about 15-20mintues with great visibility.And yes,these skinny funnels are much more common in Plains in summertime,beneath high LCL,Low precipitation meso or some violent tornadoes'final stages.I don't know the mechanism inside it but these tornadoes don't need too much instability and especially dewpoints or relative humidity ,wind shear like those dixie monsters do.
 

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The version on the DVD is I think about eight minutes which I don't know if it ever fully made it on video sites, shows it slowly moving through a line of trees and shredding them before heading for the house that was destroyed on video; I'll have to see if I can find that DVD sometime. Another similar tornado, one could probably put the Elie Manitoba F5 from 2007 in the same category; that section of North America definitely has some dramatically photogenic yet violent skinny tornadoes
 

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Speaking of Elie,There is no doubt about its F5 house and countextual damage,but in my opinion ,its actual strength maybe close to dalton/wilikin MN EF4 or just a little bit stronger.Elie spent about 3 minutes circulating around the same area which give its tiny,violent-rotating vortices an opportunity to hitting structures again and again,tearing structures'debris into tinier pieces,mixing them together and bombarding another structure,which cause the building structure much more likely to fail,just like those big city violent tornadoes.And even at the hardest hitting area,we haven't seen strong ground scouring,obvious debris granulation and wind rowing patterns,but many vehicles were thrown long distances,dismembered and mangled beyond recognition.This feature meets the phenomena that I've mentioned above"drillbit tornadoes are much more capable of lifting and throwing heavy objects and causing violent vehicles damage".If Dalton/Wilkin spent about three minutes hitting those farmsteads,I'm sure some more intense ,likely F5 damage could be done.The following are some damage pics collected from the Elie Manitoba F5
-6fff58e332f788f6f89b70b84bc90120.jpg-1d481c469bcc145e6adfac3d370689b3.jpg
-4a46761cf0c846d9.jpg
1339ce985fb6676ffae1f286af82b989.jpg-4c2fedf869881c2d1f4326744e953a5f.png224cdd16140eb438a9ed76180b040efa.jpg6a9d48fd85c847c4e277357de06309d1.jpg
7bcef7acdf18f7abbfa263e8b33cafd1.jpg55b281475e297dbe71bd2d505dc3ba98.jpg
This picture may be the only one that caught the oakville MB F3.The left one was oakville,the right one was elie
-4b34372a755618a9a1623b34a7f7ddd2.jpg
 
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Man, I knew Elie was impressive but that tree damage is pretty incredible. Here are some higher-end damage pictures from the Candlestick Park 1966 F5 around the Leesburg, MS area and surrounding parts of northern Rankin county.
Candlestickpark66LeesburgMS.jpg
This pond was drained of water after the tornado went overhead
CandlestickparkLeesburgpond.jpg
Pardon the language in the caption
CandlestickparkLeesburgMS1966.jpg
CandlestickparkMS1966.png
Another pond? Not totally sure.
CandlestickMS1966pond.png

Seems as though it was strengthening, or at least maintaining intensity, through Rankin county and may have peaked around Leesburg or a littler further west into Scott County. Also, I don't know if I've seen any other photographic evidence of bodies of water being drained by a tornado. I've heard stories of some higher end historical tornadoes doing it but haven't seen any photos of it besides these.
 
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Man, I knew Elie was impressive but that tree damage is pretty incredible. Here are some higher-end damage pictures from the Candlestick Park 1966 F5 around the Leesburg, MS area and surrounding parts of northern Rankin county.
View attachment 3981
This pond was drained of water after the tornado went overhead
View attachment 3982
Pardon the language in the caption
View attachment 3987
View attachment 3991
Another pond? Not totally sure.
View attachment 3992

Seems as though it was strengthening, or at least maintaining intensity, through Rankin county and may have peaked around Leesburg or a littler further west into Scott County. Also, I don't know if I've seen any other photographic evidence of bodies of water being drained by a tornado. I've heard stories of some higher end historical tornadoes doing it but haven't seen any photos of it besides these.
Good stuff! These are the first photos I’ve seen of the Candlestick Park tornado damage in rural areas outside of Jackson. Like others, I wish there were photos of the Scott County damage, which was apparently incredible, with severe ground and pavement scouring and many homes completely swept away.
 
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Good stuff! These are the first photos I’ve seen of the Candlestick Park tornado damage in rural areas outside of Jackson. Like others, I wish there were photos of the Scott County damage, which was apparently incredible, with severe ground and pavement scouring and many homes completely swept away.
Yeah I haven't seen a single decent quality photo from Scott County. Some blurry black and white newspaper snippets but nothing clear enough to deduce intensity. Still, it was clearly strengthening through Rankin County so not much of a leap to say it was about as intense in Scott County.
 
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Sweet! I'd never actually seen footage of the tornado itself before. Based on what I've read, there was definitely some incredible damage in Forkville and Lillian, MS. A car was lofted from a highway in Forkville and almost buried in a drainage ditch, killing all three occupants. One of them was apparently found well away from the vehicle in the yard of a nearby home. I wanna say a large brick church of some sort virtually disappeared in Forkville as well but that's taken from memory. The damage in Scott County was definitely photographed so I imagine someone somewhere is sitting on a pretty extensive collection of damage photos that we'd all like to see.

Another one from Leesburg
Candlestick1966Leesburg.jpg
These are Hinds County
CandlestickPark66Hinds.jpg
candlestickparktreedamage.png
 
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Yeah honestly Wilkin was my thought the whole time watching the videos too; they're surprisingly similar. Andy Gabrielson I think took the iconic Wilkin video, it's on a chase DVD I have. Those super skinny violent drill bits seem to be by far more common on the high plains and Canada with high LCLs and put on quite a show. Very slow moving skinny high based funnels with amazing visibility is the literal exact opposite of Dixie haha
They also move very slowly compared to the fast-trackers down in Dixie.
 
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It seems that some most violent dixie tornadoes also tend to have a skinny core even with wedge outfit which are just like those in 4/27. Tupelo in 1936 could be said as a rare monster there with both extreme intensity and extreme width of the 'core‘.
I think most wedge tornadoes (and possibly all tornadoes) have skinny cores, and very rarely have wide cores. Other examples of tornadoes with wide cores would be Greensburg, Udall, Joplin and of course Jarrell. I don't know much about Tupelo 1936, but I'm curious as to the extent of the F3+ damage was.
 
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Speaking of Elie,There is no doubt about its F5 house and countextual damage,but in my opinion ,its actual strength maybe close to dalton/wilikin MN EF4 or just a little bit stronger.Elie spent about 3 minutes circulating around the same area which give its tiny,violent-rotating vortices an opportunity to hitting structures again and again,tearing structures'debris into tinier pieces,mixing them together and bombarding another structure,which cause the building structure much more likely to fail,just like those big city violent tornadoes.And even at the hardest hitting area,we haven't seen strong ground scouring,obvious debris granulation and wind rowing patterns,but many vehicles were thrown long distances,dismembered and mangled beyond recognition.This feature meets the phenomena that I've mentioned above"drillbit tornadoes are much more capable of lifting and throwing heavy objects and causing violent vehicles damage".If Dalton/Wilkin spent about three minutes hitting those farmsteads,I'm sure some more intense ,likely F5 damage could be done.The following are some damage pics collected from the Elie Manitoba F5
View attachment 3957View attachment 3958
View attachment 3960
View attachment 3967View attachment 3961View attachment 3962View attachment 3963
View attachment 3968View attachment 3964
This picture may be the only one that caught the oakville MB F3.The left one was oakville,the right one was elie
View attachment 3966
So while on the topic of violent drillbit tornadoes meandering over an area for several minutes, this is as good a time as any to bring up the Pampa, TX tornado of 1995. This Tornadotalk article on it has the only damage pics I've been able to find from it: https://www.tornadotalk.com/pampa-tx-f4-tornado-june-8-1995/

Two videos:

1. The classic video shot by Sheriff Gary Kays as it hits and sits on top of the industrial park several minutes. Includes footage of multiple automobiles flying 100+ feet into the air:


2. Storm chasing footage of it. Near the bottom of the tornado at 2:00 you can see a large object (likely a vehicle) ejected and thrown hundreds of yards:
 
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So while on the topic of violent drillbit tornadoes meandering over an area for several minutes, this is as good a time as any to bring up the Pampa, TX tornado of 1995. This Tornadotalk article on it has the only damage pics I've been able to find from it: https://www.tornadotalk.com/pampa-tx-f4-tornado-june-8-1995/

Two videos:

1. The classic video shot by Sheriff Gary Kays as it hits and sits on top of the industrial park several minutes. Includes footage of multiple automobiles flying 100+ feet into the air:

2. Storm chasing footage of it. Near the bottom of the tornado at 2:00 you can see a large object (likely a vehicle) ejected and thrown hundreds of yards:

A multiple vortex tornado reminds me of a bunch of single vortex rope tornadoes inside a big wedge tornado. Jarrell probably had the widest area of F5 damage ever recorded. I believe it was a 1/4 to a 1/2 mile-wide. The tornado was not much wider at around 3/4 mile-wide tornado.
 
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So while on the topic of violent drillbit tornadoes meandering over an area for several minutes, this is as good a time as any to bring up the Pampa, TX tornado of 1995. This Tornadotalk article on it has the only damage pics I've been able to find from it: https://www.tornadotalk.com/pampa-tx-f4-tornado-june-8-1995/

Two videos:

1. The classic video shot by Sheriff Gary Kays as it hits and sits on top of the industrial park several minutes. Includes footage of multiple automobiles flying 100+ feet into the air:


2. Storm chasing footage of it. Near the bottom of the tornado at 2:00 you can see a large object (likely a vehicle) ejected and thrown hundreds of yards:


Wow, that Tornado Talk link contains what I believe is the only radar imagery I've ever seen from that day. As expected, quite a lot of classic supercells clustered in a small area. Looks a bit like May 3, 1999 over central Oklahoma (although maybe not quite on that scale, maybe more like May 24, 2011).

I'm curious about those two large supercells with classic hooks, adjacent to each other, southeast of the Pampa area at the end of the loop. I wonder if one of them eventually produced the Kellerville/Allison tornadoes?
 
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