CheeselandSkies
Member
Two very similar tornado events that I find fascinating (and no one ever seems to make this comparison) are the March 13, 1990 Hesston-Goessel tornadoes and the May 10, 2008 Picher-Neosho tornadoes. As the Hesston tornado weakened, the parent supercell spawned another tornado. The original tornado became a satellite tornado of and was ultimately absorbed into the new tornado which also intensifed to F5 before striking Goessel. Virtually the same scenario happened in 2008. As the Picher, OK tornado weakened, the parent supercell spawned another tornado which the original tornado was absorbed into - the new tornado also intensifed to EF4 before striking Neosho, Missouri.
In cases like these, I have to wonder if had it not been for modern radar and the vast amount of videographers, if these events would have been counted as one tornado rather than two separate ones. In the case of the Tri-State Tornado we'll never know for sure.
A similar thing happened on May 28, 2019 with the EF2 that hit the Silver Lining Tours van and the Lawrence-Linwood EF4 that followed. This merger was completely hidden by rain-wrapping except from extremely close range and thus would have been even more difficult to detect in the past.