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Severe Threat May 15-16, 2025

I want to point out how rare it is to have a tornado kill more people than it has injured. Only a few other tornadoes have ever done this:
  • Jarrell 1997 - Pretty obvious why this one did that; getting caught in it was practically death.
  • El Dorado 1958 - An F4 that killed 15 people and only injured five.
  • The Whiporwill Disaster - Most people on the boat drowned, and drowning means death.
  • There's a few others, but not too many.
The Somerset-London tornado, as official reports currently state, killed nineteen people and injured ten. That means most people it came in contact with either lost their lives or were unharmed, instead of being injured. That just goes to show how strong it was. Very high-caliber for a tornado and one of the more intense we've seen this year.

Edit: While the Henryville tornado from 2012 technically killed twelve and injured zero, it's generally accepted that there were "many" injuries.
 
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OH-IOan said:
I want to point out how rare it is to have a tornado kill more people than it has injured. Only a few other tornadoes have ever done this:
  • Jarrell 1997 - Pretty obvious why this one did that; getting caught in it was practically death.
  • El Dorado 1958 - An F4 that killed 15 people and only injured five.
  • The Whiporwill Disaster - Most people on the boat drowned, and drowning means death.
  • There's a few others, but not too many.
The Somerset-London tornado, as official reports currently state, killed nineteen people and injured ten. That means most people it came in contact with either lost their lives or were unharmed, instead of being injured. That just goes to show how strong it was. Very high-caliber for a tornado and one of the more intense we've seen this year.
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Wow. Just wow. You’re right though. Always more injuries then Deaths
 
OH-IOan said:
I want to point out how rare it is to have a tornado kill more people than it has injured. Only a few other tornadoes have ever done this:
  • Jarrell 1997 - Pretty obvious why this one did that; getting caught in it was practically death.
  • El Dorado 1958 - An F4 that killed 15 people and only injured five.
  • The Whiporwill Disaster - Most people on the boat drowned, and drowning means death.
  • There's a few others, but not too many.
The Somerset-London tornado, as official reports currently state, killed nineteen people and injured ten. That means most people it came in contact with either lost their lives or were unharmed, instead of being injured. That just goes to show how strong it was. Very high-caliber for a tornado and one of the more intense we've seen this year.

Edit: While the Henryville tornado from 2012 technically killed twelve and injured zero, it's generally accepted that there were "many" injuries.
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That injury count is definitely not final. I believe 10 is the number of critically injured.
 
andyhb said:
That injury count is definitely not final. I believe 10 is the number of critically injured.
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How many tornadoes have accurately determined injury counts anyway? Between the rubberiness of how serious an injury needs to be to count and inconsistent reporting it can't be that many.

An appendix in a recent paper on April 27 noted several tornadoes should have their injury counts recorded as 'unknown' as reports were only received from some counties and not from others, even with multiple fatalities.
 
Maxis_s said:

Didn't know tornadoes could even toss these things, let alone over several hundred yards.
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I believe the Bowdle SD tornado in 2010 did something similar, which of course was also a very violent tornado.
 
andyhb said:
I believe the Bowdle SD tornado in 2010 did something similar, which of course was also a very violent tornado.
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Bowdle is largely forgotten today but it was one of the first major tornadoes to occur after a significant number of chasers had acquired HD video cameras. And now there's 4K.
 
I really like how in these descriptions of the tree damage they note that winds were likely higher (possibly ef4) but because it’s soft wood they can’t go any higher.

Even going as far as to include radar indicated rotational velocity at the area of the DI.

Nuance like this is a welcome sight in tornado damage surveys.
1748016642770.png
 
jiharris0220 said:
I really like how in these descriptions of the tree damage they note that winds were likely higher (ef4) but because it’s soft wood they can’t go any higher.

Even going as far as to include radar indicated rotational velocity at the area of the DI.

Nuance like this is a welcome sight in tornado damage surveys.
View attachment 43136
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Amazing! I know a lot of us were skeptical
 
jiharris0220 said:
I really like how in these descriptions of the tree damage they note that winds were likely higher (possibly ef4) but because it’s soft wood they can’t go any higher.

Even going as far as to include radar indicated rotational velocity at the area of the DI.

Nuance like this is a welcome sight in tornado damage surveys.
View attachment 43136
Click to expand...
100% agree with this, that's the kind of stuff I really like to see on surveys. Note the limitations of what you're dealing with.
 
jiharris0220 said:
I really like how in these descriptions of the tree damage they note that winds were likely higher (possibly ef4) but because it’s soft wood they can’t go any higher.

Even going as far as to include radar indicated rotational velocity at the area of the DI.

Nuance like this is a welcome sight in tornado damage surveys.
View attachment 43136
Click to expand...
What office is this? That's a hell of a lot of detail for just softwood tree damage
 
SouthFLwx said:
This is interesting.
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That's like one of those descriptions out of tornadoes from older Storm Data or Monthly Weather Review reports, where someone implies that it wasn't 'on the ground' saying instead it was 'at treetop level'. As I mentioned with respect to the 27 April 2011 Trenton tornado, what actually counts as a path break after which it's a new tornado? Can tornadoes skip again?
 
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