Significant Tornado Events - Global Edition

[TH2002]

I've found the motherlode of European tornado footage while browsing the ESWD database over the past couple of days, and that's from 2011 and 2013 alone. I'll post a few of them here. These are all from 2011, a year that I think has been rightfully dubbed The Year Of The Tornado

F2 tornado in Kavajë, Albania



Landspout tornado in Zaporizhia Oblast, Ukraine. The intense looking rotation on this one makes me wonder if it was capable of causing significant EF2 or EF3 damage.



Large F1 tornado near Balakovo, Russia



A brief F0 tornado in Bergen, Norway. A likely exceedingly rare, significant December tornado (rated F2) struck Hellesylt in the same year, destroying camping trailers and mobile homes.



2011 is also an interesting case study, because some places that are no stranger to tornadoes didn't see much activity that year. A few examples:

• Colorado only had 21 tornadoes, about half of average; all were rated EF0 and most caused little or no damage.
• France ran well below average as well, with only nine tornadoes reported that year, even less (probably 5 or 6) of which were true tornadoes as the others were non-landfalling waterspouts.
• China's tornado count was also likely below average as @pohnpei pointed out, with a couple of significant tornadoes observed, though it is possible that none of these were stronger than EF2.

Of course there is the likely possibility that some tornadoes went unreported, particularly in France and China.

Other places ran right about average in terms of their 2011 tornado count:

• Kansas had 74 tornadoes, a bit below the yearly average of 96. However I do believe there was at least one clear cut EF4 during the June 20 outbreak.
• Germany had 25 tornadoes including a couple F2's, though none exceeded that intensity. Probably close to average.
• Poland: 10 tornadoes including one F2. Right about to maybe slightly below average.

 

[buckeye05]

I've been buried in the Moravia tornado survey for the past few days and found one more interesting thing. I noticed one tiny spot of F4 damage (pictured below with the black arrow) near central Mikulcice that wasn't mentioned in the survey next, nor were there any photos in the survey from that area.



Using Google maps, I narrowed it down to this house.


I was able to find a video where the house in question is shown, so I took two screen caps. It appears that the center of the house collapsed and completely "pancaked", while the left and right portions of the house were left partially intact.

 

[MNTornadoGuy]

 

[buckeye05]

You don't really hear about significant tornadoes in that part of Africa. I know South Africa has them with some regularity, but I wonder if there are any other regions on that continent that are tornado prone as well? Interesting stuff. Anyway here's a few damage photos. News article says a potato field in the third photo was "scorched dry" whatever that means (likely some kind of scouring).

 

[TH2002]

While on the topic of Nigerian tornadoes, on May 13 of this year a potentially violent tornado struck the towns of Maiduna and Mangor. Masonry homes were leveled and potato fields were scoured to bare soil.

 

[MNTornadoGuy]

While on the topic of Nigerian tornadoes, on May 13 of this year a potentially violent tornado struck the towns of Maiduna and Mangor. Masonry homes were leveled and potato fields were scoured to bare soil.

That’s the exact same image Buckeye posted lol.

 

[TH2002]

That’s the exact same image Buckeye posted lol.

Whoops. Sorry about that.

edit: I see what happened. The photos weren't in buckeye's initial post but he edited it a couple minutes later and added them. Of course post edits don't show until one refreshes the page so I had no idea.

My apologies once again.

 

[gregassagraf]

I've found the motherlode of European tornado footage while browsing the ESWD database over the past couple of days, and that's from 2011 and 2013 alone. I'll post a few of them here. These are all from 2011, a year that I think has been rightfully dubbed The Year Of The Tornado

F2 tornado in Kavajë, Albania



Landspout tornado in Zaporizhia Oblast, Ukraine. The intense looking rotation on this one makes me wonder if it was capable of causing significant EF2 or EF3 damage.



Large F1 tornado near Balakovo, Russia



A brief F0 tornado in Bergen, Norway. A likely exceedingly rare, significant December tornado (rated F2) struck Hellesylt in the same year, destroying camping trailers and mobile homes.



2011 is also an interesting case study, because some places that are no stranger to tornadoes didn't see much activity that year. A few examples:

• Colorado only had 21 tornadoes, about half of average; all were rated EF0 and most caused little or no damage.
• France ran well below average as well, with only nine tornadoes reported that year, even less (probably 5 or 6) of which were true tornadoes as the others were non-landfalling waterspouts.
• China's tornado count was also likely below average as @pohnpei pointed out, with a couple of significant tornadoes observed, though it is possible that none of these were stronger than EF2.

Of course there is the likely possibility that some tornadoes went unreported, particularly in France and China.

Other places ran right about average in terms of their 2011 tornado count:

• Kansas had 74 tornadoes, a bit below the yearly average of 96. However I do believe there was at least one clear cut EF4 during the June 20 outbreak.
• Germany had 25 tornadoes including a couple F2's, though none exceeded that intensity. Probably close to average.
• Poland: 10 tornadoes including one F2. Right about to maybe slightly below average.

I remember back in the day there was a video on YouTube from a wedge waterspout in Greece if I’m not mistaken. But the thing is, the tornado was about 100 to 50 yards from the house balcony where the whole thing was being filmed. Besides that, the tornado was stationary leading to one of the most intense tornado footage ever on YouTube. Unfortunately I haven’t been able to find this video in years.

I think this is most probably the tornado being filmed. You could even see the satellite funnel first appearing just before the main circulation showed its ugly face.

 

[MNTornadoGuy]

 

[gregassagraf]

I was just about to post this here. Potentially some EF5 damage on this one.

 

[buckeye05]

Pretty serious debarking and debranching (though it is a softwood) from the recent Bergen, Alberta EF2. It also apparently destroyed (one article says "flattened") a house but I haven't seen pics of that yet.

 

[MNTornadoGuy]

 

[buckeye05]

Surprised this isn’t getting more attention. Clearly the most significant tornado in China so far this year.

 

[eric11]

Cold vortex in Northern China and Mongolia has been anamolous active for the past twenty days, three major localized severe weather outbreak in Central and Eastern Plains of China. For now we've confirmed seven tornadoes for the 7/20 Jiangsu Province tornado outbreak, there're two significant ones to be talk about.
The Xiangshui EF3 tornado was the second latest tornado on that day. From the info we've collected for the time being, it should be a giant, rain-wrapped wedge on the ground for 18km, the max width of this monster was nearly a mile, might even slightly bigger. It is the strongest one since 2016 Funing EF4 in Jiangsu Province alone.
The most pronounced damage should be the completely mangled high tension towers.

Note the ground was scoured near the down towers.


Aside from the high tension towers, It managed to demolished several other residence, including a pig farm which the outer concrete-perforated brick wall was completely torn into pieces and thrown for dozen yards away.

This is a two story concrete residence behind the big farm which might not have taken a direct hit but still got severely damaged, the fragments on the ground were some pieces from the pig farm.

My friend went on to survey the tornado next day, here's what he captured. A factory or something like that got partially destoryed, the small brick house next to it got its roof swpet away and lost part of the wall.

Here's another completely leveled house, but somehow we couldn't locate the exact location

 

[Sawmaster]

Those electrical towers are much like ours, so probably rated to at least 125MPH. No apparent reinforcement in the CMU walls but the joints do appear to be well bonded, so good construction there for what it is.

Phil

 

[eric11]

The shangqiu, Henan Province tornado got rated EF2. It's part of the biggest supercell outbreak in recent years iirc, we have more than two dozens of supercells in the late afternoon till the evening, though the overall tornado report didn't stand out




Somehow I figured this one could be rated slightly above EF2 after more damage was recovered
This is an automobile thrown for dozen yards and severely mangled.

High tension towers flattened to the ground

Hi-res aerial view of the affected area, note one of the brick houses got it second floor completely swept away

 

[buckeye05]

What is the current death toll from the July 20 event in Jiangsu? I know there was one death from the Xiangshui EF3, but I heard via twitter that there were fatalities from the Guanyun EF2 as well. Does anyone know if that is true and if there are any articles or sources that say this?

 

[eric11]

What is the current death toll from the July 20 event in Jiangsu? I know there was one death from the Xiangshui EF3, but I heard via twitter that there were fatalities from the Guanyun EF2 as well. Does anyone know if that is true and if there are any articles or sources that say this?

The one fatality was from the Guanyun EF2 but somehow attributed to the Xiangshui EF3, And according to tiktok comments, there're more than one fatality in Guanyun EF2

 

[buckeye05]

Does anybody know what in the world a "clear sky tornado" is? I've never heard of anything remotely like this, and I am honestly pretty skeptical if its even a real phenomenon. This posts claims it was equivalent to an F3. Not sure I buy that but interesting none the less.

 

[Lake Martin EF4]

"The phenomenon is actually a severe horizontal wind vortex with no visible condensation, associated with evaporative cooling of air due to virga from altocumulus and selective wavelength filtering of sunlight through particularly uniform cirrocumulus clouds. The vortex is tilted vertically by dense local fog layer breaking the capping inversion."

So basically an invisible tornado, like DePauw was for some parts of its life.