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Severe WX Severe Threat 25 March 2021

Equus

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Boy that's some sad scenes from a Shoal Creek golf club, I know the focus is on homes lost (and there were a lot of them) but it's sad to see so many mature trees uprooted; will take decades in most areas for the tree cover to return. That gets overlooked a lot in the aftermath of tornadoes, but it's a very depressing sight for years to come

shoalcrk.JPG
 

pohnpei

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I also have reason to believe that they are going to up the wind speed estimates for when debarking starts to occur, as it currently starts in the EF2 range. More recent damage studies have shown that major debarking is more indicative of a violent tornado than previously thought. I think many of us have already caught onto this concept years ago.
Yes, I believe we have enough reason to say this. We have seen many large city/town EF3 level tornados these years such as Lake Purdy 21/Fultondale 21/Nashville 20/Seneca 20/Chattanooga20 /Dallas 19/JFC 19/Franklin 19/Ruston 19/Marshalltown 18/Taylorville 18/Eureka 18/New Orleans 17/Hattiesburg 17 etc(can make a very long list), very few or actually near none of them produce major debarking with a large amount of debris from houses. Even tornados like Newnan 21/Rowlett 15/Hattiesburg 13 with low-end EF4 structure damage still had very little debarking despite a large amount of debris exist. So I feel it's very safe to say that major debarking is more indicative of a violent tornado and increible level debarking in rural area with little debris nearby more indicative of tornados with extreme intensity.
 

Matthew70

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Boy that's some sad scenes from a Shoal Creek golf club, I know the focus is on homes lost (and there were a lot of them) but it's sad to see so many mature trees uprooted; will take decades in most areas for the tree cover to return. That gets overlooked a lot in the aftermath of tornadoes, but it's a very depressing sight for years to come

View attachment 7753
It is sad but is it just me but it appears the trees went over easy but the houses look untouched in that pic.
 

Equus

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Trees can be uprooted with relatively little wind sure, but just around the corner it did cause some structural damage here

shoak2.JPG
 

Equus

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That's probably EF2 level home damage seeing as it's mostly the roof, but a lot of others nearby definitely experienced less damage; pretty wide swath of EF1-ish wind with all the trees uprooted though
 
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I remember watching a video some years back of a tornado lifting trees into the air hundreds if not thousands of feet. They went straight up into the air. I believe it was the Weatherby, MO F4 tornado on May 29, 2004. I cannot find the vid though.
 

Timhsv

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Driving southeast on highway 14 near Sawyerville. Zoom in on the last two and you can see the trees in the sky.
Het Matt, I have a photo taken of "twin tornado's" on Thursday, have you sent it, or may even know who took that photo?
Dr. Coleman had asked me and I had posted it in haste on FB and didn't even get the source or name of who had taken it?
 

Equus

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Het Matt, I have a photo taken of "twin tornado's" on Thursday, have you sent it, or may even know who took that photo?
Dr. Coleman had asked me and I had posted it in haste on FB and didn't even get the source or name of who had taken it?
Is it this one? I assume the person posting it is the origin but it's been reposted so much it's hard to tell

 

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The more I look, the more surprised I am with at EF4 rating in Newnan. The rating was based on a few leveled homes, with little contextual evidence of a violent tornado. Here's a photo of one of the EF4 homes in Newnan, showing an unmoved car and evidence of poor anchoring. Kind of marginal, but you know what, I'm totally fine with low EF4. At the end of the day, multiple large homes were leveled.
1413574
 

Equus

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That's honestly the kind of damage I halfway expect to get tagged a 135 EF2 in many WFOs. I do like seeing glimpses of the return of the precedent that obliterated homes = EF4+, but high EF3 would also be fine in a case like this with so much of the house left.
 

pohnpei

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View attachment 7748
Slabbed home in Greensboro

View attachment 7749
Probably the most intense damage I've seen from the entire outbreak. Trees snapped and appear to have been partially debarked. Also ground scouring? Not sure. I do believe the empty slab was most likely an outbuilding however.
One thing I always paticularly notice about when determining the intensity of tornados in Dixie was the treefall pattern due to the feature of its high moving speed.(often 50 or 60mph)
A tornado with rotational wind speed only slightly higher than its transitional speed(like 60 or 70mph) can leading to trees bent or uprooted in mainly one direction or being unregular like these pictures you showed, then causing EF0/1 structure damage if there are buildings nearby. That is because of the nature of its high moving speed would lead to almost no winds in the weaker side of the tornado.
And I find two cases of these types of treefall damage with structure damage avilable nearby to further prove it
2021 Shoal Creek AL tornado:
QQ截图20210327170817.jpg
2019 Beauregard tornado in GA section:
QQ图片20210327170739.png

When rotational wind speed of the tornado being moderately higher than tornado's moving speed(like 120 or 140 mph), trees would bent or uproot in different direction(towards center) and shows a little symmetry. But the winds on the weaker side of the tornado are not strong enough to fully bent or unroot a large section of the forest and the damage in the weaker side of the tornado can be siginificantly weaker than the stronger side.
I also find one case with structure damage nearby to further prove it.
Bassfield near Seminary. there were several EF3 rating houses in this place. Compare damage between stronger and weaker side of the tornado wike red circle:
QQ截图20210327171301.jpg
When rotational winds are siginifantly higher than tornado's moving speed, the treefall pattern can show much more regularity than previous case and the structure damage nearby can easily go into EF4 level.
Beauregard tornado 2019 at peak intensity with EF4 level structure damage 800 yards from this forest:
QQ图片20210327174857.png
2011 Rainsville's treefall pattern near Lingerfeldt Road (also known as County Road 180) with EF4/5 strructure damage:
QQ图片20210327180023.png
2021 Greensboro tornado with clear defined center line and many trees were tossed along the center line :
QQ图片20210327175020.png
With the center line labeled as red arrow, you can see the structure damage right side of the picture wasn't in the center line which the damage should be strongest:
QQ图片20210327175250.png
2021 Greensboro tornado with symmetrical treefall pattern, very identical to Beauregard's treefall pattern:
QQ图片20210327171045.png
a larger viewer of treefall pattern of Greensboro with very well defined center line. Trees from both side bent towards the center.


QQ截图20210327191751.jpg
When rotational winds far far exceed tornado's moving speed which is very rare can lead to extremely symmetrical and regular treefall pattern. The structure damage nearby should be EF5 level(or well into EF5 level) if the building are well built enough.
Hackleburg tornado 2011 with EF5 structure damage nearby:
QQ截图20200124175002.jpg

And I find these two arcticles about tornado tree damage was very interesting to read.
I also posted some additional treefall pattern pictures in there:
 
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warneagle

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Boy that's some sad scenes from a Shoal Creek golf club, I know the focus is on homes lost (and there were a lot of them) but it's sad to see so many mature trees uprooted; will take decades in most areas for the tree cover to return. That gets overlooked a lot in the aftermath of tornadoes, but it's a very depressing sight for years to come
There's an area along I-75 in Lamar Co., GA where you can still see the scar in the forest from where the Barnesville tornado crossed the highway on 4/27/11. Pretty difficult to look at even a decade later.
 

speedbump305

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i actually cannot believe it’s only March and we have already had 3 EF3s this year, 1 EF4, and several EF2s and two high risks already. This is really proving to us how ugly April and May could be :( i really hope this tornado season doesn’t become very deadly and destructive :(
 
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This photo was posted on the Hayden, Alabama News Facebook page, apparently taken from SW Blount County just west of I-65 looking toward Warrior. I had no idea this tornado was so close to the ground. I'm not sure if it ever touched down anywhere in North Jefferson or Blount Counties? I wasn't reading the forum feed just before this warning was issued, but when I scrolled back through, I noticed people mentioning that this storm needed a warning. We had a very brief heads up and had to get into the basement really quickly. The weather radio alerted us immediately; none of the apps I have installed alerted us for at least a few more minutes after the radio. I'm convinced the old-school weather radios are essential, even though they can be annoying when they blast in the middle of the night for a warning on the other side of the county.

164873679_1677184415803012_7917456108187770273_n.jpg
 
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