Are you sure Grazulis said that? I distinctly remember his write-up on Ruskin Heights mentioning that there was F5-level damage to businesses in at least one area, regardless of the homes.There used to be a thread dedicated to it, apparently:
'Ruskin Heights' tornado (1957)
- 44 killed (500+ injured) - 71 mile track - Debris spotted at 30,000 feet by pilots flying near the storm - Mail from Grandview, MO was found in Iowa (165 miles away) http://www.flatlandkc.org/news-issues/cover-story/60th-anniversary-ruskin-heights-tornado-kansas-city-missouri/...talkweather.com
Grazulis gives Ruskin Heights an F4 rating, but I don't see why it shouldn't be rated F5, I've never seen these automobile damage pics from it before, really impressive.
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Significant Tornado Events
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MNTornadoGuy
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Hmmm odd. There’s a few far less convincing F5s listed in his book undisputed as such, like Oelwein and Charles City iirc. I mean hell, Ruskin Heights is one of the few 1950s tornadoes that we can actually confirm swept away anchor bolted homes. Sometimes I don’t follow his logic.
MNTornadoGuy
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He probably just didn't see the photos of the slabbed anchor-bolted homes back then. Also speaking of Charles City & Oelwein, does anyone here have photos of the supposed F5 damage from those two tornadoes?
There is, or at least was a Facebook page dedicated to the Oelwein and Charles City tornadoes, including tooons of damage photos from residents. Every home that was swept away appeared to be built on CMU or very old stone foundations, and many some appeared to be unanchored altogether. The only semi-impressive thing I remember was an asphalt walkway that was scoured from the front lawn of a house. There were also some rare photos of the Charles City tornado itself.
Juliett Bravo Kilo
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Yeah, sometimes he makes mistakes but when you're compiling information on 12,000+ tornadoes you're bound to make some errors here and there. He is a better source of consistency in ratings then many NWS offices and Fujita and some of Fujita's staff, though.
MNTornadoGuy
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He said that based on his photogrammetry analysis and heavy industrial equipment being lofted and tossed.
I also remember he said things like Jarrell wasn't that special. Like the violent damage was mainly due to strong vertical component because many cars were lofted. So I can get that as well but.. Pampa was also very slow moving yet it's damage was weaker compared to Jarrell.
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MNTornadoGuy
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I found that group that Buckeye mentioned about the 1968 Charles City tornado and yeah, all of the homes that were swept away (that I've seen but probably applies to almost all of the homes in the area) seemed to have been unanchored and laid on a stone/CMU foundation. The contextual damage also wasn't that intense.
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locomusic01
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A bit random, but I was looking thru my 5/3/99 files for a certain photo and I found this one that I don't think I posted anywhere. Or maybe I did, I dunno. Anyway, it's kind of a neat view that shows the insane vegetation damage from a different perspective than you usually see.
Edit: This is from Bridge Creek, obviously.
Edit: This is from Bridge Creek, obviously.
MNTornadoGuy
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Another notable F5 tornado from the 1960s is the 1960 Prague-Iron Post OK F5. This tornado has likely false rumors surrounding it and some of the homes swept away seem to have been poorly anchored. There are some interesting things I found though.
eric11
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Damage photos from the Plainfield F5 that might not have been published before, which behaved pretty similar to Czech EF4 last year from my perspective.The tornado reached maximum intensity in cornfields outside the city (the place where Fujita rated F5 according to significant ground scouring) but went immediately weakening in the city. It encountered numerous automobiles outside the city with many of them been thrown long distance and severely mangled.
On the contrary, relative slow moving(actually Greensburg was not slow moving) and very big (large RMW) types of tornado would have the lowest windload compared to Smithville types of tornado(fast moving small RMW). This is an important conception of tornados because given the same wind speed, tornados would have much stronger windload than hurricanes and It is used by tornados as a powerful weapon in damage, especially structure damage. Extremely quick change of pressure/wind direction is the biggest enemy for structures that used to be designed for horizontal winds.
So this depends on your definition of the "intensity" of tornados. It wouldn't be used in hurricanes because given the same wind speed, smallest hurricanes would have the same windload with the largest hurricanes. But in terms of tornados, we often already involve this yardstick imperceptiblely despite wind speed is still the only measurement of tornado's intensity on the surface.
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Casuarina Head
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The July 1993 edition of Significant Tornadoes (covering the period 1680–1991) lists Ruskin Heights as an F5 and omits the word “probable.”
Casuarina Head
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Apparently the “rumours” did not originate in the Significant Tornadoes volumes or the F5–F6 report, but in Thomas P. Grazulis’ original manuscript compiled for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The manuscript, or rather technical memorandum, is entitled “Violent tornado climatography, 1880–1982” and is 165 pages in length. Unfortunately, a full copy is not available online, but I would be very interested in obtaining one. It contains many figures and tables as well as references. Based on my correspondence with Rich Thompson and Roger Edwards the “rumours” of deep ground scouring etc. seemed to have originated in this report. But I would need to access it to confirm.
Austin Dawg
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I was thinking something along those line after reading what you guys consider the strongest
That is absolutely some of the worst vehicle damage I have ever seen, especially the one vehicle that appears to have been reduced to nothing more than an engine block and axle.
I know some on here have questioned Plainfield's rating as there was no structural damage in Plainfield proper rated higher than high end F4 (now let's not reignite the "F5 corn scouring" debate please) but this is a pretty good indicator to me Plainfield contained winds capable of causing F5 damage.
It should be kept in mind the tornado was not wide at all when it caused that damage and there were pretty much no structures out there. So it's not like those vehicles were bouncing around in a wedge for an extended period of time or being constantly hit by tons of high speed debris.
I believe the Czech F4 was capable of causing F5/EF5 damage as well at some point, but like Plainfield seems to have peaked in an area with no structures.
Shakespeare 2016
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The Greensburg tornado though more violent than I initially thought, was certainly not as violent as the Parkersburg, IA tornado a year later. I think the most violent tornado on May 4, 2007 although was probably the Macksville tornado followed by the Trousdale tornado.
MNTornadoGuy
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Damage from the 1970 Lubbock tornado.