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Discussion of February 5, 2008 Outbreak

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Good afternoon,

I haven't seen a lot of Super Tuesday discussion so I thought it'd be appropriate to make a thread for it.

For starters in this video at 1:04 I found a bit where if you brighten it enough you can actually see the Jackson EF4 in the darkness:
jacksontncontrastjacked.jpg

Does anyone else have anything interesting to share about this event?

EDIT: I also found this video that shows the precursor funnel cloud to the Castalian Springs EF3 that was the deadliest of the outbreak.
Screenshot 2022-12-19 at 18-56-03 Nashville Tornado News Clip - YouTube.png
 
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buckeye05

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If there’s one tornado that fascinates me the most from this outbreak, it would have to be the Savannah, TN EF4. The destruction that occurred at the Sharon Baptist Church and School is probably some of the most violent damage to institutional buildings I’ve seen since the implementation of the EF scale. The church itself was very large, and was totally obliterated with large metal support beams sheared off or ripped out of the foundation, which was partially swept clean. A large school building was also destroyed, with large portions of building being flattened. NWS Memphis used to have some pretty incredible damage photos available, but thanks to their inability to make thorough documentation of historic tornado events in their area a priority, they are now gone as of last time I checked.
 
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If there’s one tornado that fascinates me the most from this outbreak, it would have to be the Savannah, TN EF4. The destruction that occurred at the Sharon Baptist Church and School is probably some of the most violent damage to institutional buildings I’ve seen since the implementation of the EF scale. The church itself was very large, and was totally obliterated with large metal support beams sheared off or ripped out of the foundation, which was partially swept clean. A large school building was also destroyed, with large portions of building being flattened. NWS Memphis used to have some pretty incredible damage photos available, but thanks to their inability to make thorough documentation of historic tornado events in their area a priority, they are now gone as of last time I checked.
 

buckeye05

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Good pics, but none show the church and school unfortunately.
 
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The church:


Other damage:

EDIT: Threw together a quick Google My Map of the track (comparing official and actual) as well as the church and school locations.
 
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This to me was the modern-day benchmark for a verified high risk outbreak, until 4/27 came along and blasted everything else out of the water, skewing everyone's perception ever since.

That Arkansas tornado is one of those enigmatic events that seems like it belongs many decades earlier. I wonder if it was as powerful as Vilonia. Unlike the later tornado, I don't think there are any clear examples of overlooked/downplayed EF5 damage. Just its very long track and the parameter space that day suggest it was likely quite violent and probably capable of EF5 damage at some point, but that's all that can be said.

A day very worthy of a historical deep dive and gripping blow-by-blow account, but researching and organizing all that information would be just as grueling as it was for 5/31/85.

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MNTornadoGuy

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This to me was the modern-day benchmark for a verified high risk outbreak, until 4/27 came along and blasted everything else out of the water, skewing everyone's perception ever since.

That Arkansas tornado is one of those enigmatic events that seems like it belongs many decades earlier. I wonder if it was as powerful as Vilonia. Unlike the later tornado, I don't think there are any clear examples of overlooked/downplayed EF5 damage. Just its very long track and the parameter space that day suggest it was likely quite violent and probably capable of EF5 damage at some point, but that's all that can be said.

A day very worthy of a historical deep dive and gripping blow-by-blow account, but researching and organizing all that information would be just as grueling as it was for 5/31/85.

Sent from my Pixel 4a using Tapatalk
I don’t think Clinton was as strong as Vilonia but it was probably the 2nd strongest AR tornado of the 21st century.
 
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Just noticed this on the event Wikipedia page, but this event was the deadliest U.S. tornado outbreak since 5/31/85, until 4/27. Surpassing even such infamous days as 4/26/91, 5/3/99 and 5/4/03. However, despite that, just to reinforce how far out of every other league 4/27 was, it had two single-tornado death tolls greater than this entire outbreak.
 

akt1985

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Despite only being an EF3, why did the Castilian Springs, Tennessee tornado end up being the deadliest of the Super Tuesday Outbreak?
 
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