Bearing in mind it's already a very high resolution image, do you any closer view of the cycloidal markings at the top of the first image?
Or a linkable image source? (Though I know most of the super high res stuff has a fairly hefty price).
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Severe Weather Threat May 17-19, 2025
- Thread starter Brice W
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Or a linkable image source? (Though I know most of the super high res stuff has a fairly hefty price).
AJS
Member
Is that first image scouring? Or just farmland.
tornado examiner
Member
Those homes were completely unanchored. They just slid off the foundation most likely.
More specifically the slabbed one.
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eric11
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That's the actual ground scouring, close up ground photo can be found in earlier @Western_KS_Wx post
AJS
Member
I thought that was from near the Plevna area. He took images of the ground scouring near Grinnell, KS.
RizzenSojourner
New Member
For those of us who aren't keeping up with every detail, which May 16 Tor are you referencing?
Western_KS_Wx
Member
I also traveled along that road south of town, Gove CC, and took these photos. Not quite as impressive as what I saw to the south, but still very evident and significant damage to the vegetation.
These first two images are looking south. Cut corn stalks were flattened or removed from the soil, and much of the grass and low-lying vegetation was flattened, with partial scouring visible.
Corn lying on the side of the road.
These are facing north, where cycloidal ground scouring occurred. This is what that looked like at ground level.
One thing that really struck me about this area, was that the path was clearly visible 2 miles to the south. It’s visible just beyond the tree line on the left in the distance.
Edit: For those wondering, I will unfortunately not be able to travel out to Greensburg/Plevna this week, got some things going on and that’s a pretty good drive from where I’m at. Hoping more drone footage comes out to show the true strength of these monsters.
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Western_KS_Wx
Member
Also, I must point out that much of the field on either side of the road was already cut/harvested and was mainly dirt and dead grass. However, the vegetation along the road and in the ditch was fully grown, healthy grass, and it was pretty much scoured down to the dirt. Just clearing up any misconceptions, either of those fields had no signs of growth whatsoever. Still, the fact that the tornado removed virtually every bit of vegetation remaining and even dug small trenches is extremely impressive.
Kds86z
Member
I assume tornados from greensburg storm haven’t been rated yet?..
Central Ohio Wx
Member
Plevna is 155/EF3+ (Plevna side of path hasn't been rated yet). Greensburg area hasn't been rated.
Kds86z
Member
Thanks I see Sunday earlier tornadoes but
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This was a major event for W KS/SW NE (GLD and DDC's CWAs). Already 5 EF3+ tornadoes confirmed by my count and that's not an easy thing to do in such a sparsely populated area. We're lucky that Grinnell was the only town that took a hard hit.
CheeselandSkies
Member
The tornado-driven moderate risk actually verified pretty well despite the cloud cover which lingered well into the afternoon.
...it's just that as chasers we are mostly looking for the pretty ones that happen in daylight, and for those you had to be elsewhere. In addition the 10 hatched surrounding the 15 was void of reports apart from the far western edge.
jiharris0220
Member
13 significant tornadoes in the span of 7 hours is definitely nothing to sneeze at for a plains event. The kinematics/parameters that day were among the highest I’ve seen ever.
Very rarely do you get a highly veered environment with 4000-6000+ cape values and a 50-60knot+ LLJ overlaying each other.
This combined with a jet streak being almost perpendicular in orientation with the LLJ and sufficient mixing along the dryline allowed for a purely discrete mode.
The layer of fog/cumulus clouds didn’t matter because it only would’ve prevented OWS convection.
And the strong inversion layer, mid level dry air and nebulous forcing ahead of the dryline would’ve prevented any OWS supercells anyways.
March 14th this year is the most recent proof that you can have a substantial tornado outbreak purely from dryline convection alone, with May 24th 2011 being an extreme example.
Very rarely do you get a highly veered environment with 4000-6000+ cape values and a 50-60knot+ LLJ overlaying each other.
This combined with a jet streak being almost perpendicular in orientation with the LLJ and sufficient mixing along the dryline allowed for a purely discrete mode.
The layer of fog/cumulus clouds didn’t matter because it only would’ve prevented OWS convection.
And the strong inversion layer, mid level dry air and nebulous forcing ahead of the dryline would’ve prevented any OWS supercells anyways.
March 14th this year is the most recent proof that you can have a substantial tornado outbreak purely from dryline convection alone, with May 24th 2011 being an extreme example.
Kds86z
Member
So thankful those kinematic and parameters didn’t work out in the next state below.
jiharris0220
Member
Those parameters did “pan out” actually, the reason why there was only one struggling supercell was because of mid level dry air and nebulous forcing, which robbed that lone supercell of support from would be surrounding convection.
Which made it susceptible to constant dry air intrusions, which the strengthening LLJ only increasing dry air entrainment; the supercell simply was not allowed to mature and root after the couple of tornadoes it put down.
Kds86z
Member
Right, well what I meant to say was if those ef3s occurred in Oklahoma in more populated areas.
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Kds86z
Member
3 EF2s in CO. Also impressive.
Kds86z
Member
