Significant Tornado Events

[MNTornadoGuy]

Awesome stuff here. A while back, I read an old archived Weather Bureau about the New Bloomfield, MO F4, and I saw the same bit about the anchor bolts and the concrete slab. It paints a picture of a very violent tornado, and it seems like an informal F5 rating would have been more appropriate than F4.

It's also interesting to compare and contrast the F4/EF4 tornadoes that struck Garland, TX in 1927 and 2015.

I wouldn't be surprised if the Strong AR tornado also reached F5 intensity.

 

[Brice Wood]

I wouldn't be surprised if the Strong AR tornado also reached F5 intensity.

Surprised it wasn’t an F5

 

[Juliett Bravo Kilo]

One of the most underrated tornado outbreaks is the May 7-10, 1927 Mississippi Valley-Plains tornado outbreak. This outbreak consisting of >35 significant tornadoes and >9 violent tornadoes (I also looked through newspapers for weak tornadoes and came up with a total number of at least 66 tornadoes) affecting an area extending from Northern Texas, to Nebraska, through AR/MO/IL, and all the way to Northeastern USA. 217 people were killed as a result of this outbreak. I'll talk about some of the most notable violent tornadoes of this outbreak:

New Bloomfield MO F4
This very violent tornado devastated rural areas west of New Bloomfield, sweeping away multiple large homes. One house the tornado encountered was anchored to its poured concrete foundation with 1/2 inch iron bolts. The tornado completely leveled and partially swept away this home, tearing loose a 16x6 ft and 4 inches thick chunk of concrete which broke into 3-4 pieces. 3 people in the basement were killed when the concrete chunks fell onto them. Large trees were snapped in half, uprooted, or carried several hundred feet.

Nevada TX F4
This tornado was a part of an erratic and violent tornado family that struck the NE Dallas metro area. The western half of the town of Nevada was leveled along with farms in rural areas. 19 people were killed as a result of this tornado. Not much information is available about this tornado.

Greenville TX F4
The second violent member of this tornado family cut a 15 mile long path in NW Hunt County. Even less information is available about the tornado but it reportedly swept away farmhouses. 6 people were killed by this tornado.

Garland TX F4
This tornado cut a 1-mile long looping path in NE Garland. Despite the destruction occurring only in a 5-block area, 15 people were killed by this tornado. Homes were completely leveled.

Poplar Bluff MO F4
This was the deadliest tornado of the outbreak that struck Arkansas and Missouri. 15 homes were destroyed in Arkansas at F4 intensity. The tornado wasn't exceptionally intense when it struck Poplar Bluff but due to the downtown area being packed at the time, it became a mass casualty situation. 98 people were killed, 93 people in Missouri, and 5 in Arkansas.

Strong AR F4
This extremely violent tornado devastated the town of Strong. A large part of the downtown area was literally leveled to the ground and the "best homes" in town were swept away. 24 people were killed.

This picture I remember on the old thread was attributed to Rocksprings, TX. I remember it made me think that Rocksprings could actually have been a really intense event but now it's clear it probably wasn't (at least based on damage photographs available).
Interestingly enough, New Bloomfield was also struck by a tornado in the April 1880 outbreak (the one that spawned the Marshfield Cyclone, Missouri's deadliest tornado until Joplin).
The 1920s have quite a few underrated outbreaks, this one being among the most notable. Another outbreak I'd love to get information on is the Late-November 1926 tornado outbreak, which with 107 fatalities is the deadliest November outbreak on record.

 

[pohnpei]

Indeed, winds inside were 212mph at its peak, had it hit magnum directly with those wind speeds this could’ve have been an EF5

212mph was the preliminary overall TVS strength of this tornado. The later analysis showed peak wind speed about 180mph

 

[buckeye05]

212mph was the preliminary overall TVS strength of this tornado. The later analysis showed peak wind speed about 180mph

Hmm I didn’t realize 212 MPH was preliminary.

 

[speedbump305]

Hmm I didn’t realize 212 MPH was preliminary.

Same here. To be honest. Mangun could have produced EF5 damage, but we need to see more contextual damage like debarking of trees. Scouring can’t immediately determine an EF5 tornado. While it does obviously indicate a violent tornado, it won’t immediately scream “ Oh yeah this is an EF5 “

 

[speedbump305]

Same here. To be honest. Mangun could have produced EF5 damage, but we need to see more contextual damage like debarking of trees. Scouring can’t immediately determine an EF5 tornado. While it does obviously indicate a violent tornado, it won’t immediately scream “ Oh yeah this is an EF5 “

I’ve seen no debarking of trees in the aerial damage flyover. all i’ve seen is out building damage some damaged homes, and scouring

 

[speedbump305]

I hate when people say “ Oh yeah a slabbed home EF5 damage “ NOPE, we need to see proper anchoring, and we need to see incredible contextual damage nearby

 

[pohnpei]

Hmm I didn’t realize 212 MPH was preliminary.

Yes, speaking of this, it is interesting to talk about the difference between EF5 damage tornado and EF5-DOW scaned tornado. Namely, tornados contains EF5 winds scaned by DOW. We know that a surprising large proportion of tornados contains EF5 winds in some point of its life based on Wurman's newest article. Though these winds were not 3 seconds ground level winds, several articles already talked about DOW winds were largely the very low bound of the actual wind speed of tornados due to a host of limitation of DOW measurement.
We know that there was tornado like Spencer contained winds speed as high as 264m/s(ground relative) right before it hit the town and 112m/s to 115m/s when it went through the town moving at 13m/s, no clear cut EF5 level damage can be found in the town as far as I know. Houses in Spencer were largely poorly built, but most of them still didn't completely swept away in the worst hit area. When it comes to Bridge Creek, the centrifugal force of such large amount of debris when it went through moore made the measurement of DOW largely meaningless.
It is real tough to answer the question of what level DOW-corresponding winds needed when it comes to EF5 damage. But one thing I know was there can be a big difference between DOW-measured EF5 tornado(>200mph) and EF5 damage level tornados.

 

[MNTornadoGuy]

If the same standards used to rate the April 3, 1974 Super Outbreak, I feel like for the April 27, 2011 tornado outbreak these tornadoes would get an F5 rating:
Hackleburg AL
Smithville MS
Tuscaloosa AL
Ringgold GA
Rainsville AL
Bridgeport AL
Philadelphia MS

 

[speedbump305]

If the same standards used to rate the April 3, 1974 Super Outbreak, I feel like for the April 27, 2011 tornado outbreak these tornadoes would get an F5 rating:
Hackleburg AL
Smithville MS
Tuscaloosa AL
Ringgold GA
Rainsville AL
Bridgeport AL
Philadelphia MS

Isn’t Bridgeport the one that pulled up a concrete porch slab and rip concrete stairs off a house?

 

[TH2002]

Isn’t Bridgeport the one that pulled up a concrete porch slab and rip concrete stairs off a house?

Yes that was Bridgeport.

Impressive video of the tornado:

 

[Marshal79344]

Images from the 1927 Nevada, Texas Tornado from newspapers.com, when I had the free trial

 

[TH2002]

If the same standards used to rate the April 3, 1974 Super Outbreak, I feel like for the April 27, 2011 tornado outbreak these tornadoes would get an F5 rating:
Hackleburg AL
Smithville MS
Tuscaloosa AL
Ringgold GA
Rainsville AL
Bridgeport AL
Philadelphia MS

I also feel that some of the EF3-rated tornadoes such as Newton, MS and Haleyville, AL would be rated F4.

 

[Marshal79344]

The EF3 before Smithville deserves more recognition than it ever received

 

[TH2002]

The EF3 before Smithville deserves more recognition than it ever received
View attachment 9015

There were countless devastating tornadoes rated lower than EF4 that occurred during the 2011 Super Outbreak that have been virtually forgotten. How about we finally give some of these forgotten tornadoes the recognition they deserve?

 

[CheeselandSkies]

Ahhhh yes the Dayton Tornado. Do you think Any tornadoes from that sequence were capable of EF5 damage?

I forget the exact days but there were some pretty big wedges out in the open Plains (I believe one near Laverne, OK one evening). Lawrence-Linwood probably had at least moments of being extremely violent as well.

The Dayton-Beaver Creek event was what was "supposed" to happen in northern Illinois that day. The big worry among us chasers was that the warm front would get hung up to the south, a common failure mode in this region. Instead, it surged too far north and veered the low-level winds across the area. Not sure what was going on in SW OH, whether the front kinked back to the south there or if there was some sort of mesoscale boundary.

I followed a supercell from near Yorktown to near Paw Paw, IL. It produced some dramatic wall clouds and a brief tornado that was confirmed by survey but I didn't see. The amount of chaser traffic I encountered in northern Illinois of all places was also frustrating especially after just being in the Mangum circus. It was tolerable until I got close to I-39 (I was the only one around for my initial view of the wall cloud in the first photo), along and east of there it was almost as bad as at Mangum.

Supercell with wall cloud, Yorktown, IL 5/27/2019 by Andy, on Flickr

Somewhere north/northeast of Walnut, IL 2 by Andy, on Flickr

 

[TH2002]

Some videos and damage pics of the 4/27/2011 Haleyville tornado, which was rated EF3:

 

[CheeselandSkies]

There were countless devastating tornadoes rated lower than EF4 that occurred during the 2011 Super Outbreak that have been virtually forgotten. How about we finally give some of these forgotten tornadoes the recognition they deserve?

I'm rather fascinated by the relatively short-tracked EF3 that hit Fayette County. The storm only received brief mention from James Spann in the midst of the Tuscaloosa-Birmingham craziness, when the storm was over northern Walker/southern Winston Counties and possibly after the tornado had already dissipated.



When he zooms out and loops the velocity you can see the couplet peak very bright/quite obviously tornadic, but then they go back to the double box and he apparently doesn't notice. The storm was considerably smaller and shorter-lived than the other supercells on the day, almost like it was fighting for elbow room in somewhat worked-over air after all the monster cells that had already traversed the area, yet it was still able to produce a strong tornado.

Regarding Haleyville, Spann was discussing that storm, the reflectivity updated and showed a debris ball just as he was about to go off it and he apparently didn't notice. 3:16:55.



He did say to the viewing audience several times that with as many tornadoes as were occurring on the day, and the need to focus on the ones threatening more heavily populated areas, to treat any storm that approaches as dangerous/tornadic and take cover (he does this in the first link right after discussing the storm that had produced the Fayette Co. EF3).

Geiger/Panola (predecessor to Tuscaloosa-Birmingham, produced by the cell that got choked off and absorbed by its parent supercell) is another barely remembered EF3. IMO Spann and some of the other TV meteorologists spent a little too much time on that one even after it was clear it was being choked off by the cell to the south, but it did appear that the circulation managed to last almost into west-central Tuscaloosa County.

Due to its massively long track, 7 fatalities and hitting Eoline directly, that EF3 is better remembered than the others but was almost certainly much stronger than its rating would suggest. Almost remarkable that that supercell, unlike most others, did not cycle and produce another monster which would then hit the cities on I-65 south of Birmingham.

 

[Juliett Bravo Kilo]

There were countless devastating tornadoes rated lower than EF4 that occurred during the 2011 Super Outbreak that have been virtually forgotten. How about we finally give some of these forgotten tornadoes the recognition they deserve?

The Newton, MS EF3 managed to do this to concrete guard rails:







I recommend checking the PDF out below: