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Historic tornado videos missing from youtube/the internet?

buckeye05

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Oh wow was not aware of that channel, super excited binge season coming up
Right? One thing I discovered from this channel is that a lot of the "classic" tornado video from old tornado documentaries are heavily cut and edited down. I figured in most of these cases, the camera man only got a minute or less of video, but what I'm seeing is that a lot of footage was cut out and never used again, with pretty much all documentaries using the same portions of video over and over. For example, there's way more video of the 1974 Ash Valley, KS tornado that I had originally thought.
 
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Was anyone aware that there is video of the 1974 Kennard, IN F4? I had no idea any videos of this tornado existed and its blowing my mind. Makes me wonder how many historic tornadoes have been filmed, but the footage was forgotten or lost. Also, if you're into vintage tornado video, you have to check out the guy's channel. Literally a library of digitized historic tornado video, some of which I have never seen before, like this video from Kennard.

Vortexva was always my go to source for hard to find tornado footage, looks like another channel that might give it a run for its money.
 
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Right? One thing I discovered from this channel is that a lot of the "classic" tornado video from old tornado documentaries are heavily cut and edited down. I figured in most of these cases, the camera man only got a minute or less of video, but what I'm seeing is that a lot of footage was cut out and never used again, with pretty much all documentaries using the same portions of video over and over. For example, there's way more video of the 1974 Ash Valley, KS tornado that I had originally thought.


Another thing I hate is when they edit the sound from one video onto the footage from another. Makes it hard to tell what was the "authentic" audio with the scene as recorded. I used to run across this a lot with documentaries containing footage of the Andover tornado.
 
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This was a really cool find for me. I've lived in Dane County, WI most of my life, worked for WMTV (middle of the three TV stations' coverage included here) since 2013, and had never heard of this event.

 

TH2002

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On another note, while this isn't exactly a "historic" tornado I still thought it was worth mentioning.
The landspout tornado that occurred near Apple Valley, UT was Utah's only tornado of 2011, and this article has a link to a YouTube video that, sadly, is no longer available. However, it does appear to have been filmed by multiple people and fortunately there is still some footage available:
 

A Guy

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Vortexva was always my go to source for hard to find tornado footage, looks like another channel that might give it a run for its money.
I remember Blake Naftel had some good videos on his channel five or six years ago, but his most recent upload is last year. Trouble with TV stations claiming copyright maybe? Pretty sure vortexva used to have several it now does not as well.

Certainly I wouldn't ever have thought there was footage of the Kennard tornado, considering how little documentation there is available of the Super Outbreak (especially compared to Palm Sunday 1965).
 
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buckeye05

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I'm currently looking for a video of the 2020 Sartinville, MS EF4 (the one before Bassfield) on youtube. There was great video of it, but I forgot to fave it and now I can't find it. It was a big Smithville-like wedge. Does anyone else have it saved?
 

eric11

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I'm currently looking for a video of the 2020 Sartinville, MS EF4 (the one before Bassfield) on youtube. There was great video of it, but I forgot to fave it and now I can't find it. It was a big Smithville-like wedge. Does anyone else have it saved?


I'll recommend these two.
 
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Blake Naftel just put up the full VORTEX chase video from Friona & Dimmitt, TX on June 2, 1995. I've seen snippets of it in Weather Channel and other tornado documentaries since childhood.



I've said it before, but it's a real head-scratcher how little detailed survey information is available for this outbreak as well as the Pampa/Allison one that occurred six days later; given how locally impactful (highly unusual to have multiple violent tornadoes in the same day in that region, largely due to sparse population/lack of DIs) and scientifically noteworthy (first big successes for VORTEX) they were.
 
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Blake Naftel just put up the full VORTEX chase video from Friona & Dimmitt, TX on June 2, 1995. I've seen snippets of in it Weather Channel and other tornado documentaries since childhood.



I've said it before, but it's a real head-scratcher how little detailed survey information is available for this outbreak as well as the Pampa/Allison one that occurred six days later; given how locally impactful (highly unusual to have multiple violent tornadoes in the same day in that region, largely due to sparse population/lack of DIs) and scientifically noteworthy (first big successes for VORTEX) they were.

Pretty sure what happened is the damage surveys and the like were accidentally discarded for lots of this outbreak....TornadoTalk's article on it is the only thorough one I know of.
 
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I've heard that on here before and it just seems really bizarre/inexcusable to me. I mean, they didn't have ONE backup copy?
Well it was the 90s so perhaps they forgot to or their computer hard drive crashed before they could make any more backups lol.
Government bureaucracy, stuff happens.
 

TH2002

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Well it was the 90s so perhaps they forgot to or their computer hard drive crashed before they could make any more backups lol.
Government bureaucracy, stuff happens.
Nah, not to derail this thread too much but hard drives were actually built MUCH better back then. All of my 90's laptops and even my late 80's Toshiba T3100e/40 all have their original hard drives. All still working.

Anyways though, the lack of documentation is probably the same reason they barely even got a mention in Storm Data. Probably just ignorance or indifference to the historical significance of the tornadoes from those outbreaks.
 
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Nah, not to derail this thread too much but hard drives were actually built MUCH better back then. All of my 90's laptops and even my late 80's Toshiba T3100e/40 all have their original hard drives. All still working.

Anyways though, the lack of documentation is probably the same reason they barely even got a mention in Storm Data. Probably just ignorance or indifference to the historical significance of the tornadoes from those outbreaks.
It really is amazing how difficult it is to find information on this event; I have a feeling some stormchaser or NWS employee is sitting on a bunch of info we'd all love to see.
 

TH2002

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It really is amazing how difficult it is to find information on this event; I have a feeling some stormchaser or NWS employee is sitting on a bunch of info we'd all love to see.
I feel the same way about a lot of tornadoes; the one that's gotten my attention recently is Glade. Would love to eventually find photos of the homes that were reportedly swept off their foundations.
 
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