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Severe WX Damage Reports 3/1-3/2

Lori

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Post them as you read or experience them.....

This is from Reed Timmer....listen to that roar!!

 

PerryW

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Bart Comstock damage video from Perryville, Misouri....looks EF-4.....maybe even EF-5 (one home swept clean from foundation).

 

buckeye05

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I don't know if that's going to be enough to go on nowadays. But EF-4 definitely for sure.
Saw several other angles of that house earlier. Was anchor bolted, but appeared to be missing some washers. Probably gonna be EF4.
 
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Honestly if an anchor-bolted house that's only missing a couple of washers is swept away, that still should qualify a high-end EF4 or possibly a low EF5 rating. Now, I'm relatively conservative with tornado ratings, but I think some surveyors in the last 3 years or so have gone beyond reasonable conservativism and onto "going out of their way to find any excuse to use the lowest possible rating", examples being the Vilonia, AR EF4, Nickerson, KS EF3 and Abilene, KS EF4.
 

warneagle

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Contextual damage is key with that kind of thing and I haven't seen enough daylight pictures to really see, but the structural damage alone is certainly high-end EF3 at minimum, probably EF4, and maybe toward the higher end of EF4.
 

buckeye05

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Honestly if an anchor-bolted house that's only missing a couple of washers is swept away, that still should qualify a high-end EF4 or possibly a low EF5 rating. Now, I'm relatively conservative with tornado ratings, but I think some surveyors in the last 3 years or so have gone beyond reasonable conservativism and onto "going out of their way to find any excuse to use the lowest possible rating", examples being the Vilonia, AR EF4, Nickerson, KS EF3 and Abilene, KS EF4.

Not to derail the thread here, but there is so much inaccurate information in the above statement. Sweeping away of anchor bolted homes can be rated as low as EF3 if there is no contextual evidence of a violent tornado, the structure in question sustained major debris impacts, or sustained explosive failure of its attached garage. I haven't seen anything out of Perryville even approaching the EF5 criteria.

Regarding Nickerson, that house was completely and entirely unanchored and the tornado was a slow mover, so high EF3 was absolutely as high as they could go. For Abilene, one of the homes subflooring was not anchored, and the one house that did have its subflooring anchored was not entirely swept clean.

Only thing I can agree with is Vilonia. That survey was a joke.
 

vanni9283

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Contextual damage is key with that kind of thing and I haven't seen enough daylight pictures to really see, but the structural damage alone is certainly high-end EF3 at minimum, probably EF4, and maybe toward the higher end of EF4.

It's certainly stronger than high-end EF-3, I can tell you that.
 

Equus

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If anything, the relatively light but still present wind rowing (with fascinating vortex pattern) and any possible scouring could help a little with contextual evidence of >EF3, but the photos I've seen thus far certainly don't scream EF5. Will be interested to see what survey teams find of construction quality. EF4 would not be terribly surprising.
 
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Not to derail the thread here, but there is so much inaccurate information in the above statement. Sweeping away of anchor bolted homes can be rated as low as EF3 if there is no contextual evidence of a violent tornado, the structure in question sustained major debris impacts, or sustained explosive failure of its attached garage. I haven't seen anything out of Perryville even approaching the EF5 criteria.
I wasn't talking about Perryville specifically in that post, and I explicitly said I'd say higher-end EF4 or possibly a minimal EF5, and then only if a slabbed house was only missing washers on a couple of its anchor bolts. If you're trying to civilly debate here, then please don't put words in my mouth.

I also wasn't talking about the swept-away houses in the case of Nickerson or Abilene. For Nickerson, it was the reducing of hardwood trees to stubs that suggests EF4 strength. For Abiliene, it was the twisting of railroad tracks coupled with possibly the most extreme mangling of vehicles since the 5/24/11 El Reno tornado that suggested EF5 strength. Plenty of violent tornadoes in the 21st century (Greensburg, Tuscaloosa, Enterprise, Henryville, just to name a few) have crossed CWR tracks without bending them, which is fairly suggestive of greater intensity in the case of the Abilene tornado.
 
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If anything, the relatively light but still present wind rowing (with fascinating vortex pattern) and any possible scouring could help a little with contextual evidence of >EF3, but the photos I've seen thus far certainly don't scream EF5. Will be interested to see what survey teams find of construction quality. EF4 would not be terribly surprising.
I concur on the EF4 rating. I'm guessing the official wind estimate will probably be in the 170-175 mph range.
 

buckeye05

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I wasn't talking about Perryville specifically in that post, and I explicitly said I'd say higher-end EF4 or possibly a minimal EF5, and then only if a slabbed house was only missing washers on a couple of its anchor bolts. If you're trying to civilly debate here, then please don't put words in my mouth.

I also wasn't talking about the swept-away houses in the case of Nickerson or Abilene. For Nickerson, it was the reducing of hardwood trees to stubs that suggests EF4 strength. For Abiliene, it was the twisting of railroad tracks coupled with possibly the most extreme mangling of vehicles since the 5/24/11 El Reno tornado that suggested EF5 strength. Plenty of violent tornadoes in the 21st century (Greensburg, Tuscaloosa, Enterprise, Henryville, just to name a few) have crossed CWR tracks without bending them, which is fairly suggestive of greater intensity in the case of the Abilene tornado.

There just isn't a single instance of EF5 house damage where even a few of the bolts are missing washers. Not saying I agree, just saying that usually is considered a fatal structural flaw.

For Nickerson, debarking alone usually isn't enough to go EF4, with Louisville, MS and some trees debarked by the Moore tornado being the only exceptions I know of. And as I said, it was a very slow mover which would make it unwise to go EF4 in that case, especially if you're basing it off just tree damage.

One of the NWS Topeka surveyors mentioned in a podcast I listen to that the Abeline/Chapman tornado would have been rated EF5 had it hit a town directly. The machinery and train track damage was insane, but there aren't DI's for that. So your reasoning isn't off there, but that just isn't how the scale is applied.
 
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Acronym for continuously welded rail, the most common as well as the strongest type of tracks. Probably the reason it was fairly common for maxi-tornadoes to damage or destroy tracks pre-195o but the Abilene/Chapman tornado was the only one to do anything like that since 1950 to was because of the replacement of jointed tracks with the considerably sturdier CWR tracks.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Track_(rail_transport)#Continuous_welded_rail
Agreed!!
 

Equus

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The CWR damage at Chapman was something I think a lot of us never expected to see. Was a lot of good discussion about that on the old forum.
 
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Acronym for continuously welded rail, the most common as well as the strongest type of tracks. Probably the reason it was fairly common for maxi-tornadoes to damage or destroy tracks pre-195o but the Abilene/Chapman tornado was the only one to do anything like that since 1950 to was because of the replacement of jointed tracks with the considerably sturdier CWR tracks.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Track_(rail_transport)#Continuous_welded_rail
I know of a tornado that was rated a high-end F4 on the original Fujita scale that was likely capable of bending CWR tracks. It was like 300 miles northwest of Chapman in Hitchcock/Red Willow County, Nebraska. It occured on June 15, 1990 and it literally granulated cars, household appliances, and farming equipment into small fragments.
 
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warneagle

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NWS Paducah did say prelim EF3+ expected on Perryville, Mo., Crossville, Ill., and Poseyville, Ind. St. Louis Dispatch quoted someone from NWS saying high-end EF3 was probably the minimum from Perryville. Were all three of those the same supercell?

Certainly wouldn't be surprised to see an upgrade to EF4 in Perryville. Honestly, almost expect it. Several frame houses with all walls down and the debris partially swept away/rowed would suggest EF4. I doubt the construction on most of those was robust enough to merit more than low-end to mid-range EF4, just from looking at them though; they're mostly small houses. There is that photo of partial ground scouring, though, that might push it toward the upper end of EF4.
 
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I know of a tornado that was rated a high-end F4 on the original Fujita scale that was likely capable of bending CWR tracks. It was like 300 miles northwest of Chapman in Hitchcock/Red Willow County, Nebraska. It occured on June 15, 1990 and it literally granulated cars, household appliances, and farming equipment into small fragments.
The Trenton/Culbertson tornado? I'm inclined to agree; it caused some of the most impressive granulation of debris ever recorded along with the Jarrell tornado, and was most likely an F5, although it caused no F5-level damage to buildings, leading to a rating of F4. Interestingly enough it occurred exactly two weeks after another extremely violent tornado in Pecos County, Texas, which was likely also of F5 strength, but rated F4.
 
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