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MNTornadoGuy

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Any idea where this was taken? I know immediately after the tornado, the first pics showed what appeared to be the ground scoured to bare soil, but it actually ended up being new residential lots where sod and grass seed hadn’t been put down yet.

The debris pattern and vegetation damage in that photo is about the worst I’ve seen from Washington, IL though. Impressive.
Based on aerial imagery this photograph appears to have possibly been taken at the northern edge of town. The brown area is barren farm fields while the grassy area is the embankment of W Cruger Rd.
 

MNTornadoGuy

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Coahuila Mexico regularly experiences very intense supercells and some of these likely generate significant tornadoes. One example of this occurred on 3/21/2000 in rural areas. It had an 88.85 kt Vrot and satellite imagery shows scouring that was visible for more than 2 years after the tornado. Makes me wonder how many other events like this have occurred in that state.
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Coahuila Mexico regularly experiences very intense supercells and some of these likely generate significant tornadoes. One example of this occurred on 3/21/2000 in rural areas. It had an 88.85 kt Vrot and satellite imagery shows scouring that was visible for more than 2 years after the tornado. Makes me wonder how many other events like this have occurred in that state.
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Yeah I think it's pretty clear at this point that the traditional "tornado alley" extends into both the Canada Prairies and far northern Mexico areas; it's just that in Mexico's case the area is so remote and largely nothing but desert or wilderness wasteland there's few man-made structures that can be hit and few people to report any tornado in the area.

A while back in this thread we discussed a violent rain-wrapped tornado that was either F3 or F4 that struck Ciudad Acuna, Mexico, a border town right across from Texas.


This is the region of Mexico that appears to be most prone to tornadic activity:

 

buckeye05

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Any updates on the China outbreak? Haven't heard much else since it happened. I know there are a lot of tornadoes from that day that haven't been given a rating yet.
 

MNTornadoGuy

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Damage from Ciudad Acuna tornado:


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TH2002

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The largely forgotten 12/23/2014 tornado outbreak is one I feel deserves more recognition. When you search for information on this event you mostly get information about the 12/23/2015 outbreak which was obviously deadlier. Regardless, this small but devastating outbreak spawned 10 tornadoes on December 23 and 24, including a high-end EF3 tornado that tore through Columbia, MS, killing three people. Two more people were killed by an EF2 tornado near Laurel, MS.

Personally I believe the Columbia tornado should have at least been rated in the EF4 range given that a well-bolted brick home was completely swept from its foundation though I can't for the life of me find the picture now.

After looking, looking and more looking I could only dig up these two videos of the Ellisville-Columbia tornado. If anyone else knows of more footage from this outbreak, please post the links here!

 

eric11

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Any updates on the China outbreak? Haven't heard much else since it happened. I know there are a lot of tornadoes from that day that haven't been given a rating yet.
Likely a large number of those tors will remain a mystery. China has only three official tornado damage survey teams and they've kept surveying the Shengze and Wuhan tornado for the past two days (both are rated EF3), so it's very likely the rest of these "suspected" tors will be ignored or mislabled as "straight line winds".
 

Marshal79344

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The largely forgotten 12/23/2014 tornado outbreak is one I feel deserves more recognition. When you search for information on this event you mostly get information about the 12/23/2015 outbreak which was obviously deadlier. Regardless, this small but devastating outbreak spawned 10 tornadoes on December 23 and 24, including a high-end EF3 tornado that tore through Columbia, MS, killing three people. Two more people were killed by an EF2 tornado near Laurel, MS.

Personally I believe the Columbia tornado should have at least been rated in the EF4 range given that a well-bolted brick home was completely swept from its foundation though I can't for the life of me find the picture now.

After looking, looking and more looking I could only dig up these two videos of the Ellisville-Columbia tornado. If anyone else knows of more footage from this outbreak, please post the links here!


I was quite surprised when looking on the National Weather Service Damage Assessment Toolkit that it was not rated EF4 because the house was apparently "too small" despite it being up to code. The rate at which this tornado intensified was also incredible. It almost immediately began doing high-end EF3 to EF4 damage.
 
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Here's a lesser-seen video of Moore 2013 that captures the entire formation and rapid intensification of the tornado.
One thing that some people don't realize about this tornado is how quickly the storm intensified. Joplin caused EF5 damage within five minutes of touchdown and the same goes for Moore 2013, if not even quicker.

Bridge Creek-Moore 1999 also intensified extremely, and went from a narrow stovepipe to a mile wide within only a minute or so after touchdown and likely hit F5 intensity within that time frame. One thing I've noticed about lots of these high-end events is that they tend to intensify extremely rapidly, often within seconds of touchdown.
 

buckeye05

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I was quite surprised when looking on the National Weather Service Damage Assessment Toolkit that it was not rated EF4 because the house was apparently "too small" despite it being up to code. The rate at which this tornado intensified was also incredible. It almost immediately began doing high-end EF3 to EF4 damage.
Probably the worst call I’ve ever seen JAN make. This was the same year as Vilonia. Maybe it’s no coincidence.
 

Nightking2021

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Damage from the 2004 Hallam tornado in rural areas.
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The first house looks like it wouldn't qualify for more than a low-end F3 rating because it looks like it was used with regular nails to attach the home to the foundation. However, some of that damage looks like high-end F4. Especially the house that looks like it was well-bolted to the foundation.
 

buckeye05

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The first house looks like it wouldn't qualify for more than a low-end F3 rating because it looks like it was used with regular nails to attach the home to the foundation. However, some of that damage looks like high-end F4. Especially the house that looks like it was well-bolted to the foundation.
There definitely are anchor bolts visible along the basement foundation perimeter and in that first photo, but the lack of sill plate removal, and relatively untouched shrubbery is quite suspect.
 

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I know that the 2014 Smithfield, NY tornado was already mentioned as a likely underrated event, but I wanted to share this photo of the most intense point of damage. A three story farmhouse on a hill was swept clean from its basement foundation, and debris from the home was thrown into another house downwind, destroying about half of it. It was rated an 135 MPH EF2, apparently based on the assumption that due to the fact the house was on a hill, gravity played more of a role in the destruction of the house than actual wind. I don't really buy it though. I can't think of any scenario where a three story home being totally swept away and obliterated should be rated below EF3.

It's worth noting that no tornado warning was issued prior to this strong and deadly tornado. In addition, NWS Binghamton made a statement on social media right after the event, emphasizing that the tornado "was NOT an EF3". Seems a little defensive, and may have something to do with the missed tornado warning, but that's speculation on my part.
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So, I couldn't fit the US and Canadian portions into the same screengrab, but the map's starting to fill in a bit. Obviously still need to add a number of tornadoes, and some of them here are still a WIP, but it's getting there. What a fascinating and bizarre collection of tracks, though:

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Interesting detail I noticed on the American side, is that many of the tornadoes either moved or curved to the southeast, you don't see that direction a whole lot with major tornado outbreaks. Niles-Wheatland is even more interesting as its path is more or less due east exactly, also not something you see all that much with tornado paths.
 

TH2002

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I know that the 2014 Smithfield, NY tornado was already mentioned as a likely underrated event, but I wanted to share this photo of the most intense point of damage. A three story farmhouse on a hill was swept clean from its basement foundation, and debris from the home was thrown into another house downwind, destroying about half of it. It was rated an 135 MPH EF2, apparently based on the assumption that due to the fact the house was on a hill, gravity played more of a role in the destruction of the house than actual wind. I don't really buy it though. I can't think of any scenario where a three story home being totally swept away and obliterated should be rated below EF3.

It's worth noting that no tornado warning was issued prior to this strong and deadly tornado. In addition, NWS Binghamton made a statement on social media right after the event, emphasizing that the tornado "was NOT an EF3". Seems a little defensive, and may have something to do with the missed tornado warning, but that's speculation on my part.
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Was that house well-bolted to the foundation? Whether the house was bolted or not however I'm pretty sure they broke the constraints of the EF scale which doesn't normally allow swept away frame homes to be rated lower than EF3.
 
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