Significant Tornado Events

[SouthFLwx]

Damage from Moore 2013 at the Orr Family Farm. Intense ground scouring occurred in the field south of the main farm and large steel tanks were thrown up to a half-mile.

View attachment 13576

Moore 2013 was incredibly violent. I honestly wouldn’t be surprised if the tornado reached a brief peak in this area based off of the extreme vehicle damage and intense ground scouring.

 

[MNTornadoGuy]

Damage from the 1974 Sayler Park OH tornado. From what I've seen, the homes that were swept away by this tornado were unanchored much like in Xenia and I doubt this would get an EF5 rating if it happened today or even an F5 rating in the late 1990s.

 

[TH2002]

So I was looking at the Hackleburg tornado on the DAT and I must say, there are a LOT of questionable EF5 DI's while other more plausible points of EF5 damage don't seem to have been added. Trees not totally debarked, homes with debris still on the slabs, homes with CMU foundations that failed, vehicles not totally mangled... the list goes on. My intent is not to question the rating, I totally agree that this tornado was an EF5, but I think like Mayfield's case it seems to have unleashed its strength contextually rather than structurally.

Questionable EF5 DI's

However, I did find these photos that appear to show the Oak Grove home? DI's are placed near Mt. Hope, but the photos fit the description of the ones I remember seeing.

Also this photo of the restaurant in Mt. Hope

Meanwhile, none of these homes are on the DAT

 

[buckeye05]

So I was looking at the Hackleburg tornado on the DAT and I must say, there are a LOT of questionable EF5 DI's while other more plausible points of EF5 damage don't seem to have been added. Trees not totally debarked, homes with debris still on the slabs, homes with CMU foundations that failed, vehicles not totally mangled... the list goes on. My intent is not to question the rating, I totally agree that this tornado was an EF5, but I think like Mayfield's case it seems to have unleashed its strength contextually rather than structurally.

Questionable EF5 DI's

However, I did find these photos that appear to show the Oak Grove home? DI's are placed near Mt. Hope, but the photos fit the description of the ones I remember seeing.

Also this photo of the restaurant in Mt. Hope

Meanwhile, none of these homes are on the DAT
View attachment 13580

The overzealous application of EF5 damage points along the Hackleburg-Phil Campbell damage path is something I’ve brought up before. They really did overdo it. There were multiple areas of legit EF5 damage along the path (particularly in the Oak Grove and Mount Hope areas), but not as many as the DAT would suggest.

 

[buckeye05]

Damage from the 1974 Sayler Park OH tornado. From what I've seen, the homes that were swept away by this tornado were unanchored much like in Xenia and I doubt this would get an EF5 rating if it happened today or even an F5 rating in the late 1990s.

I’d agree that based on the photos above, there isn’t any clear, legitimate F5 damage in Sayler Park. The one caveat is that the F5 damage was supposedly limited to a few homes that were swept away at a “hilly area near a lake”, and I’ve never been able to definitively find photos of that area.

Also, I’m pretty sure the body of water in the background above is the Ohio River, so I don’t think it’s the area in question.

 

[MNTornadoGuy]

What was probably the worst documented F5 of the 1974 Super Outbreak is the Depauw-Daisy Hill IN tornado. Homes were completely swept away in the Daisy Hill community but almost no photos are available from that area. A newspaper reported that most of the homes in this area were small or mobile.

 

[Juliett Bravo Kilo]

So I was looking at the Hackleburg tornado on the DAT and I must say, there are a LOT of questionable EF5 DI's while other more plausible points of EF5 damage don't seem to have been added. Trees not totally debarked, homes with debris still on the slabs, homes with CMU foundations that failed, vehicles not totally mangled... the list goes on. My intent is not to question the rating, I totally agree that this tornado was an EF5, but I think like Mayfield's case it seems to have unleashed its strength contextually rather than structurally.

Questionable EF5 DI's

However, I did find these photos that appear to show the Oak Grove home? DI's are placed near Mt. Hope, but the photos fit the description of the ones I remember seeing.

Also this photo of the restaurant in Mt. Hope

Meanwhile, none of these homes are on the DAT
View attachment 13580

What it did to that Mount Hope restaurant reminds me of the foundation with a corner ripped away by Chapman.

 

[Juliett Bravo Kilo]

What was probably the worst documented F5 of the 1974 Super Outbreak is the Depauw-Daisy Hill IN tornado. Homes were completely swept away in the Daisy Hill community but almost no photos are available from that area. A newspaper reported that most of the homes in this area were small or mobile.
View attachment 13581

I went through the old website on 4/3/74 via Wayback Machine and they have hundreds of photographs from Monticello, Madison and Parker City Indiana but nothing from this tornado. This & Sayler Park are easily the worst-documented on the outbreak (which is really saying something).

 

[buckeye05]

I went through the old website on 4/3/74 via Wayback Machine and they have hundreds of photographs from Monticello, Madison and Parker City Indiana but nothing from this tornado. This & Sayler Park are easily the worst-documented on the outbreak (which is really saying something).

For a while there it was nearly impossible to get any good photos or details from Guin, but that seems to have changed in recent years thankfully.

 

[Juliett Bravo Kilo]

For a while there it was nearly impossible to get any good photos or details from Guin, but that seems to have changed in recent years thankfully.

And both of the Tanner tornadoes and Huntsville, although NOAA fixed that.
Come to think of it, most tornadoes from 4/3/74 it's difficult to find much photographs of in general.

 

[locomusic01]

First time I've seen stuff like this, actually. I guess bicycles being wrapped around trees isn't as notable as large automobiles being wrapped/speared into them.

I kinda got a kick out of these when I was doing Bridge Creek (from Lakeside Golf Course in Moore):

 

[locomusic01]

This post isn't necessarily about one tornado event in general, but rather about the historic winter of 1911-1912 and its effects on the tornado climatology of that timeframe.

Temperatures had been well above average November 1911 and the Upper Midwest was no exception to this; that all changed with the arrival of an extremely powerful cold front that sent temperatures tumbling into the negatives across the upper Mountain West and parts of the upper Plains. However, as powerful cold fronts tend to do with plumes of warm, moist air a tornado outbreak was spawned including an F4 that caused over $500,000 in damage in and around Janesville, WI. At least one person was killed, and within an hour after the tornado, the survivors had to deal with blizzard conditions as the overnight low in Janesville tumbled into the 20's. Grazulis also confirms three additional F2 tornadoes from this outbreak, including a fatal F2 that killed an elderly couple in Owasso, MI. One other F2 occurred in Michigan and another occurred in Indiana. The actual total tornado count is likely higher, though some of the tornadoes have unfortunately been lost to history.

The 11/11/11 Great Blue Norther is one of my favorite weather events of all time. The tornado outbreak wasn't necessarily extreme (although the Janesville F4 was pretty impressive), but the whole event is just fascinating.

 

[locomusic01]

The 2/28/1987 Glade, MS tornado is somewhat shrouded in mystery. This February tornado was reportedly two miles wide at its peak (though Tornado Talk lists the width as 1230 yards, or 0.7 miles) and killed six people, all in Glade. It was on the ground for 35 miles across three counties. Four of the fatalities were in mobile homes, one person died in his car as he tried to escape the tornado and another person was crushed by a falling tree as he ran around trying to warn people of the approaching tornado. Multiple homes were reportedly swept off their foundations, though unfortunately no photos are currently available of this damage. In fact there aren't many damage photos available outside of what's on the Tornado Talk article, but on a news article I found a color photo of Glade Elementary School, which was destroyed. The article seems to have had more photos at one point, but naturally...

I don't remember much about this event off-hand tbh, but I've got a handful of random photos:

 

[MNTornadoGuy]

I don't remember much about this event off-hand tbh, but I've got a handful of random photos:

Welcome back locomusic01, how is progress on the 5/30/1985 article going?

 

[Juliett Bravo Kilo]

I kinda got a kick out of these when I was doing Bridge Creek (from Lakeside Golf Course in Moore):

The debarking from this thing never ceases to astound me.

 

[TH2002]

@locomusic01, you're a legend. I've been looking for photos from those events for a LONG time. Thanks!

 

[locomusic01]

Welcome back locomusic01, how is progress on the 5/30/1985 article going?

I can almost see the light at the end of the tunnel if I squint hard enough. Actually just finished the intro + meteorology stuff today, so I only have a couple tornadoes left to cover. That and continuing to try and frantically chase people around until they send me their freakin' photos/stories/info, but I guess that's just like.. part of my life now lol

 

[Juliett Bravo Kilo]

I can almost see the light at the end of the tunnel if I squint hard enough. Actually just finished the intro + meteorology stuff today, so I only have a couple tornadoes left to cover. That and continuing to try and frantically chase people around until they send me their freakin' photos/stories/info, but I guess that's just like.. part of my life now lol

You may wanna give up with the stubborn types lol.
You could just update the article later on if you get new photos.
Yeah I'm eager to read the meteorology section, as the circumstances that led to this outbreak seem to have been exceptionally rare.

 

[Juliett Bravo Kilo]

So for everyone on this thread, I've got a paid subscription to TornadoTalk (I finally bit the bullet) and it is definitely worth it. They have incredible articles on so many of the 4/27/11 tornadoes (and adding more) and they also have an exceptionally thorough article on the 1994 West Virginia Outbreak (at least as thoroughly as an outbreak like that can be documented) and their article on the Tuscaloosa tornado demonstrates just how violent this thing was between the namesake city and Birmingham. I really think a case can be made that it did EF5 damage in the remote forest and country areas between the two metropolises.
I can't wait for their future articles on 4/3/74, maybe that outbreak will finally be well documented.

 

[Juliett Bravo Kilo]

I kinda got a kick out of these when I was doing Bridge Creek (from Lakeside Golf Course in Moore):

Yeah, so much of the tree/vegetation/topsoil damage and ground scouring and some of the home damage was on par with Jarrell in the Bridge Creek....I shudder to think what would happen if this tornado traveled at the speed of Jarrell while going through the OKC metro area.