Significant Tornado Events

[Juliett Bravo Kilo]

Probably more widespread and similar to Super 1974, Palm Sunday 1965 and US/Canadian 1985, given the explosive paramaters models were showing a week in advance. We would've likely had more EF4s and 5s had the warm sector from Great Lakes to Mid-TN hadn't been rained on all day...

I wondered why 4/3/74 and 4/27/11 were very different in terms of geographical extent...this answers that question, thanks.

 

[pohnpei]

A synced video of security camera in Pilger.
This was a farmer co-op store located in the left side of the tornado and the core of tornado went through south of it. Some cameras, especially Cam3 captured some really crazy winds. The store itself was rated 119mph and there were siginificant damage surround this area.

 

[locomusic01]

Yooooo! So, I found a large collection of photos a few months ago in a university archive, mostly from the path of the Grand Valley F4 (GV, Orangeville, Tottenham, etc) but also some from the Alma F3 and possibly the Wagner Lake F2. Based on the descriptions they're a mix of aerial survey photos and ground-level shots taken by local news photographers, but the only problem is they're the original 35mm negatives so they're only accessible in person.

Anyway, I called + emailed the library where the collections were held but I never heard anything back, so I'd pretty much written it off.. until today. The librarian just emailed me and said that she's placed the whole batch (five packages in all) in their queue to be digitized. She said it could be a few weeks, which is cutting it awfully close, but I'm so freakin' stoked. I've got a decent collection of photos from the Grand Valley F4 either way but this could be huge.

Just wanted to update this - I called the woman who manages the collection last week to see if she could give me an update on the timeframe for digitization. We talked about my project and I told her I was working really hard to get it finished + posted by the anniversary, so she said she'd see what she could do. Well, it looks like she came through because she contacted me this morning and said everything's been digitized and ready to go. I just had to fill out a form and send it back, so they should be sending the files this afternoon.

I was gonna wait until I got them to post about it, but I'm really excited and wanted to tell somebody besides my girlfriend, who is probably even more sick of hearing about 5/31/85 than you guys lol

 

[locomusic01]

On an unrelated note, one relatively lesser-known event I'd like to investigate at some point is the 9/21/1924 Withee-Thorp, WI F4 (probably a tornado family). Grazulis suggests it probably reached F5 intensity near both towns, and some of the descriptions definitely sound pretty impressive. There's a handful of photos out there but I haven't come across much from the hardest-hit areas yet.

























There was also an F4 near Sanborn, WI but I haven't really looked into it and only have a single random photo:

 

[TH2002]

I was gonna wait until I got them to post about it, but I'm really excited and wanted to tell somebody besides my girlfriend, who is probably even more sick of hearing about 5/31/85 than you guys lol

Some people end up having to choose between hobbies and relationships, while others have less of a choice - I'll leave it at that, but I always have and always will enjoy playing DOOM on every computer imaginable (except for my 286 and below systems because they are just too old) in my spare time when I'm not studying tornadoes.

On another note, have you seen any impressive vehicle damage from Niles-Wheatland that you intend to include in your final article? Sorry if something went over my head, probably did if anything, but I'm really curious considering some of the stuff you've posted from the other 5/31/1985 tornadoes.

 

[locomusic01]

Some people end up having to choose between hobbies and relationships, while others have less of a choice - I'll leave it at that, but I always have and always will enjoy playing DOOM on every computer imaginable (except for my 286 and below systems because they are just too old) in my spare time when I'm not studying tornadoes.

On another note, have you seen any impressive vehicle damage from Niles-Wheatland that you intend to include in your final article? Sorry if something went over my head, probably did if anything, but I'm really curious considering some of the stuff you've posted from the other 5/31/1985 tornadoes.

Yeah, it's weird - there was really high-end vehicle damage pretty much throughout its entire path, yet there just aren't many photos of it. Or I should say I haven't got my hands on many photos of it yet. I was incredibly excited last fall when I talked to a guy who surveyed the damage in Niles and Hubbard for the fire department and he said he had hundreds of pictures, including a lot of vehicle damage, but - surprise, surprise - he never sent them. I've contacted him multiple times since then but still nothing.

 

[MNTornadoGuy]

On an unrelated note, one relatively lesser-known event I'd like to investigate at some point is the 9/21/1924 Withee-Thorp, WI F4 (probably a tornado family). Grazulis suggests it probably reached F5 intensity near both towns, and some of the descriptions definitely sound pretty impressive. There's a handful of photos out there but I haven't come across much from the hardest-hit areas yet.

























There was also an F4 near Sanborn, WI but I haven't really looked into it and only have a single random photo:

The Thorp WI tornado was definitely an F5.

 

[Lake Martin EF4]

Another tornado (yes, another one from me) I've been looking for photos of would be the Gladstone tornado of May 4, 2003. I haven't found any photos of it - all the ones I found are either from chasers miles away arriving far too late, from the Kansas Speedway tornado or from the Liberty F2. However there is some coverage here and it looks like just the right position based off the fuzzy radar:

 

[MNTornadoGuy]

Damage photos from the 5/22/1933 Black Hills SD F2. This strong tornado uprooted/snapped thousands of trees and destroyed small homes at a lumber camp. 5 people were injured. This tornado was a part of a large and widespread outbreak of at least 20 tornadoes across the Great Plains including a deadly F5 near Tryon NE.

 

[Juliett Bravo Kilo]

So, going through Alabama state archive today and came upon this stuff when researching the Guin tornado... a bunch of news sleeves....it's pretty clear that someone has access to a ton of photographs we'd all love to see, but it appears the photos are all owned by "Alabama Media Company" so they're probably real stingy about handing them out, as TV companies tend to be with tornado footage. Particularly intriguing is the one that mentions Guin a year after the tornado. I wonder if an archivist would be allowed to scan some photos for me but I doubt it; even if they were allowed I'm not sure who on the site to start contacting about that.

 

[Sawmaster]

So, going through Alabama state archive today and came upon this stuff when researching the Guin tornado... a bunch of news sleeves....it's pretty clear that someone has access to a ton of photographs we'd all love to see, but it appears the photos are all owned by "Alabama Media Company" so they're probably real stingy about handing them out, as TV companies tend to be with tornado footage. Particularly intriguing is the one that mentions Guin a year after the tornado. I wonder if an archivist would be allowed to scan some photos for me but I doubt it; even if they were allowed I'm not sure who on the site to start contacting about that.

Google didn't show an "Alabama Media Company" but there is an Alabama Media Group who owns several newspapers and websites, and they are owned by "Advance Local". If you know any 'insiders' you could always ask if they can make inquiries for you.

Phil

 

[locomusic01]

Just wanted to update this - I called the woman who manages the collection last week to see if she could give me an update on the timeframe for digitization. We talked about my project and I told her I was working really hard to get it finished + posted by the anniversary, so she said she'd see what she could do. Well, it looks like she came through because she contacted me this morning and said everything's been digitized and ready to go. I just had to fill out a form and send it back, so they should be sending the files this afternoon.

I was gonna wait until I got them to post about it, but I'm really excited and wanted to tell somebody besides my girlfriend, who is probably even more sick of hearing about 5/31/85 than you guys lol

Welp, this was a big ol' bust. Almost all of the photos were from Grand Valley itself (even though a bunch were indexed as Orangeville/Tottenham), and most were just higher-quality versions of ones I already had. What a bummer, man. Anyway, here are some of the better ones.

Aerial of the east side of Grand Valley taken from across the river:

The Grand Valley Public Library pretty much disappeared:

The Mono Plaza just north of Orangeville:

In front of the Mono Plaza - a man actually survived being flipped over and rolled in the blue Camaro here:



Still working on figuring out exactly what/where the rest of these are (although I know the last two are near the beginning of the path in Arthur):

 

[locomusic01]

A couple others from the Arthur area where the tornado first touched down:

Apparently an excavator was picked up in this area and either thrown or rolled (probably the latter) like 50 yards or so. I assume it was probably a 5-ton compact excavator rather than one of the commercial ones that can weigh 20-30+ tons, but still pretty impressive considering this was like 30+ miles before the tornado hit peak intensity.

 

[Lake Martin EF4]

Welp, this was a big ol' bust. Almost all of the photos were from Grand Valley itself (even though a bunch were indexed as Orangeville/Tottenham), and most were just higher-quality versions of ones I already had. What a bummer, man.

 

[locomusic01]

Okay, so I think this will probably be the final version of my outbreak map. It doesn't include the Leamington, ON F0 and the Tobyhanna, PA F1 because they were apparently ridiculously tiny + I didn't really find enough info to map them anyway. It does include the two undocumented tracks I'm most confident in though (listed as F?), which would make a total of 46 tornadoes - 32 in the US and 14 in Canada. All 91 fatalities are also included along with their names - 79 in the US and 12 in Canada. Of the US deaths, 67 were in PA and 12 were in Ohio.

Another cool thing I didn't realize before: you can click on each tornado track to see its total area. Not surprisingly, Moshannon is by far the largest at 63.1 mi². In fact, the next closest is Atlantic at "only" 33.1 mi². Despite being ~42 mi long, Niles-Wheatland only encompasses 7.5 mi² because much of the path was quite narrow.

May 31, 1985 — The United States - Canada Outbreak - Google My Maps

May 31, 1985 — The United States - Canada Outbreak

www.google.com

 

[locomusic01]

If anyone's interested, I also put up the 5/3/99 map, although I didn't bother to label the F0 and F1 tornadoes or mark the fatalities:

May 3, 1999 — The Bridge Creek - Moore Outbreak - Google My Maps

May 3, 1999 — The Bridge Creek - Moore Outbreak

www.google.com

 

[locomusic01]

Oh, I also found three more areas of interest. These are northwest of Friendship in Scioto County, OH (a few miles from the WV border) and they're all roughly 1-2 miles long and a quarter to a third of a mile wide:

 

[Lake Martin EF4]

Okay, so I think this will probably be the final version of my outbreak map. It doesn't include the Leamington, ON F0 and the Tobyhanna, PA F1 because they were apparently ridiculously tiny + I didn't really find enough info to map them anyway. It does include the two undocumented tracks I'm most confident in though (listed as F?), which would make a total of 46 tornadoes - 32 in the US and 14 in Canada. All 91 fatalities are also included along with their names - 79 in the US and 12 in Canada. Of the US deaths, 67 were in PA and 12 were in Ohio.

Another cool thing I didn't realize before: you can click on each tornado track to see its total area. Not surprisingly, Moshannon is by far the largest at 63.1 mi². In fact, the next closest is Atlantic at "only" 33.1 mi². Despite being ~42 mi long, Niles-Wheatland only encompasses 7.5 mi² because much of the path was quite narrow.

Maybe the real Hydetown tornado was the friends we made along the way.

 

[locomusic01]

Maybe the real Hydetown tornado was the friends we made along the way.

Oh damn, good catch lol. Just added it. So make that (at least) 47 tornadoes total, 33 in the US.

 

[Lake Martin EF4]

Oh damn, good catch lol. Just added it. So make that (at least) 47 tornadoes total, 33 in the US.

Also will you be including the Liberty track you pointed out too or is that too sketchy to add?