Significant Tornado Events

[Juliett Bravo Kilo]

The deadliest tornado of the May 1917 tornado outbreak sequence was the infamous Mattoon-Charleston F4. This large and violent tornado likely began either in Shelby County or near Modesto. The tornado would then plow through the town of Mattoon. Numerous homes in the northern half of the town were completely leveled, trees were debarked, and 53 people were killed. Charleston was the second town to be hit by this monster tornado and was almost as equally devastated as Mattoon was. Here a farmhouse just outside of town was "splintered" with the people inside it being blown away and killed, multiple industrial plants were destroyed, and many homes were leveled. Not as many people were killed in Charleston as in Mattoon but it was still an enormous loss with 38 dead. The small town of Westervelt was also hit by this tornado or a previous one from the same family. A 150-ft wide swath was reportedly "swept clear of homes" with 4-6 deaths. Many of the homes in that town were reportedly new and well-built.

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Never seen a picture of a tornado from that storm until now....Mattoon was likely a tornado family fyi.

 

[MNTornadoGuy]

Photos from the 1924 Sandusky-Lorain tornado I don't think I have seen before.

 

[andyhb]

I'm guessing Grazulis' F4 rating probably came from those neighborhoods.

 

[MNTornadoGuy]

I'm guessing Grazulis' F4 rating probably came from those neighborhoods.

Probably those neighborhoods and the "several homes" that were leveled in Sandusky.

 

[MNTornadoGuy]

Damage from the 2010 Little Axe tornado:

 

[buckeye05]

Shocked at how puny the Charleston-Mattoon tornado was visually. Didn’t expect it to look anything like that.

 

[buckeye05]

Yeah the EF4 ratings for Moore/Choctaw and Norman/Little Axe are quite liberal. At least one of them was based on a single well-built house that was mostly leveled but still had a couple of walls standing.

 

[MNTornadoGuy]

Ground views of Sunfield:

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Looking back at this I do see why some people said that Sunfield "vanished." The entire town was leveled which to most people it would seem as if it had vanished.

 

[andyhb]

Shocked at how puny the Charleston-Mattoon tornado was visually. Didn’t expect it to look anything like that.

I don't believe that was the Mattoon tornado itself. The Westervelt tornado was separate.

 

[MNTornadoGuy]

Photos from the 1976 Brownwood tornado. While the home swept away doesn't seem to be well-built the vehicle damage is intense.

 

[buckeye05]

Photos from the 1976 Brownwood tornado. While the home swept away doesn't seem to be well-built the vehicle damage is intense.

The Significant Tornadoes entry for this one doesn’t accurately convey how violent it was. That’s among the more impressive instances of vehicle damage that I’ve heard of.

 

[MNTornadoGuy]

Scar from the Brownwood tornado

More damage photos:

 

[MNTornadoGuy]

Extreme damage from the 5/30/1961 Gates NE F5 (F4 in the official database for some reason.) An entire farm literally vanished with the surrounding trees being debarked.

 

[Juliett Bravo Kilo]

Shocked at how puny the Charleston-Mattoon tornado was visually. Didn’t expect it to look anything like that.

I'm wondering if the photograph was taken in its waning phase

 

[buckeye05]

I'm wondering if the photograph was taken in its waning phase

Another user said it likely wasn’t of the actual Charleston-Mattoon tornado, which would make sense too.

 

[MNTornadoGuy]

April 29-30, 1909 was one of the largest and most significant tornado outbreaks of the 1900-1910 era. At least 47 tornadoes touched down which is a truly insane number for the early period of tornado records. ~39-40 of these were significant tornadoes with 4-5 violent tornadoes. Sadly 170 people were killed and hundreds more were injured.

 

[MNTornadoGuy]

I was looking through a newspaper report on the 1908 Fillmore County NE F5 and I found particularly notable case of damage from it. Apparently a farmhouse was “swept clean” to the floor which was “bolted to its foundation.” I guess homes being anchored to their foundation date that far back.

 

[MNTornadoGuy]

Damage photos from the June 1995 Panhandle tornado outbreak sequence:

Friona TX:

Dimmitt TX:

Allison TX:

 

[CheeselandSkies]

The B&W makes those photos look much older than they are. Looks like some impressive tree shredding/snapping, vehicle mangling and possibly the muddy, scoured aftermath observed with some other Plains violent tornadoes such as Bridge Creek/Moore '99 (although probably over a much smaller area).

 

[MNTornadoGuy]

One tornado that hasn't been talked about yet here is the 1905 Snyder OK tornado(es). This was an extremely violent family of tornadoes, likely one of the strongest tornadoes of the pre-1950 era. The first tornado in the family touched down near Carmel OK and moved NE. In these rural areas, the tornado was massive and very violent. Farm after farm was completely swept away or leveled. Many of these farms had nothing left to mark their site. At one of these farms (the farm had a 5-room homestead and "good" barns/outbuildings) virtually vanished. One newspaper reported at this site that "not a single board of them [the buildings] could be found." The tornado also plowed through the small settlement of Lock which was devastated with "every vestige of the settlement being swept away." Around 9 people were killed by this first tornado which dissipated a few miles NE of Lock.

Another large and violent tornado would develop two miles SE from where the first tornado dissipated. It would move along Otter Creek, leveling multiple farms and killing at least 5 people. The tornado then moved into the town of Snyder at maximum intensity. Rows of homes were totally swept away with "not even splinters left" and reportedly even the foundations were stripped clean. Debris was scattered far from the town: "For 5 miles along the Frisco track can be seen splinters but none are larger than 4 ft in length." Other pieces of debris from buildings including a piano were reportedly carried up to 8 miles. Some other examples of this tornado's extreme intensity were a heavy iron vault door weighing 1-1.5 tons that were carried over a block and "even the grass in the path of the storm was killed and covered with a sort of mud lava." At least 87 people were killed in Synder and many of the bodies were horrifically mutilated. The tornado dissipated soon after leaving town.