Significant Tornado Events

[Marshal79344]

I have also recently come across some more tornado images that I feel should be shared.

Two images from the January 22nd, 1904 tornado that devastated Moundville, Alabama at nighttime.




A scene from the May 8th, 1905 Marquette, KS tornado. This deadly F4 hit the town around midnight, with a fatality/injury ratio of 34 to 50. This tornado was overshadowed significantly by the disaster at Snyder two days later.



I was always skeptical of the Snyder Tornado's true strength until I realized that these "empty" zones were once filled with homes. The wipeout was so complete in some areas that almost nothing was left behind except bare ground. These two images show this perfectly.





Some railcars that were mangled by the storm



The Westminster, TX tornado of May 9th, 2006 was not F3.






Last image: This is probably the strongest tornado damage I've ever seen in Florida. This was taken at Lake Mack, which was devastated by the second of the two EF3's produced by the Groundhog Day Supercell on February 2nd, 2007.

 

[Juliett Bravo Kilo]

I have also recently come across some more tornado images that I feel should be shared.

Two images from the January 22nd, 1904 tornado that devastated Moundville, Alabama at nighttime.

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A scene from the May 8th, 1905 Marquette, KS tornado. This deadly F4 hit the town around midnight, with a fatality/injury ratio of 34 to 50. This tornado was overshadowed significantly by the disaster at Snyder two days later.

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I was always skeptical of the Snyder Tornado's true strength until I realized that these "empty" zones were once filled with homes. The wipeout was so complete in some areas that almost nothing was left behind except bare ground. These two images show this perfectly.

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Some railcars that were mangled by the storm

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The Westminster, TX tornado of May 9th, 2006 was not F3.

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Last image: This is probably the strongest tornado damage I've ever seen in Florida. This was taken at Lake Mack, which was devastated by the second of the two EF3's produced by the Groundhog Day Supercell on February 2nd, 2007.

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Those trees at Westminster....holy crap. That's on par with Bridge Creek in terms of the severity of the debarking involved.

 

[locomusic01]

Here are a few others from Marquette:

And from Snyder:

 

[locomusic01]

Another tornado I'd like to get into more eventually is the 4/30/24 Horrell Hill, SC F4. The tornado was probably a family, but officially it tore a 105-mile path and killed 53 people, making it the deadliest on record in South Carolina. These photos are all from around Horrell Hill, mostly at the school:

 

[Juliett Bravo Kilo]

I am ecstatic to announce that I have come across some images from April 20th, 1920 that I have not posted before! They depict tree damage from the Deemer, MS tornado, which devastated that lumber mill and did major tree damage and reported ground scouring according to newspaper articles. That tornado eerily resembled another tornado from 2011 in that same area in terms of violence. They both show tree damage and not structural, but albeit, super rare finds from a horribly documented outbreak.

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The other image refuses to upload: https://media.discordapp.net/attach...682418757712/unknown.png?width=677&height=988

I have a feeling someone, somewhere is sitting on a box with a ton of unscanned photos we'd all love to see with this outbreak.

 

[locomusic01]

I can't believe I'm actually saying this, but I think I might finally be done. Well, done writing the article at least. I still have to finish preparing and uploading all the photos, inserting and formatting them, writing captions, etc, etc, etc. That's a huge pain in the money maker and I'm very much not looking forward to it, but y'all have no idea how relieved I am to be done with the article itself.

Although, even calling it an "article" is kinda stretching the meaning of the word to its breaking point lol. At 52,620 words, it's literally about the length of the average YA novel. Soo.. whoops. I also 100% refuse to proofread or try and polish up this damn behemoth, so expect some bad writing. Or worse writing than usual, I guess. At any rate, here's the intro:

The sky grows dark and threatening as swollen storm clouds roll in from the west, extinguishing the late-afternoon sun. Shade trees bend and creak in protest, their broad canopies quivering in the wind. Rain comes in fits and starts, spattering against the windshield in fat, heavy droplets.

None of it matters to Ronnie Grant. After one of the proudest and happiest days of his life, a few thundershowers won’t dampen his spirits. His daughter has just graduated high school — in a few months, she’ll begin her scholarship at a prestigious university halfway across the country. In the meantime, he and his wife Jill are heading out to celebrate at their favorite local restaurant.

A lineman for the utility company, Ronnie has lived in Northeast Ohio all his life. He’s driven this stretch of U.S. 422 so many times he can do it in his sleep, arcing north and west from Girard through the outskirts of Niles. As he crests a hill overlooking a commercial strip on the city’s northeast side, the gossamer veil of rain begins to lift.

His wife gasps and stiffens in her seat. He opens his mouth to speak but the words catch in his throat. Something is terribly wrong, and suddenly the whole world is unmoored from the flow of time. Seconds linger like minutes, unfolding in a stilted, stop-motion fashion that only adds to the deep and pervasive sense of unreality. Without thinking, he instinctively pulls off the highway and slides to a stop.

He can hardly process what he’s seeing, yet every image is seared into Ronnie’s brain with inexplicable and excruciating clarity. The black, debris-choked funnel, looming like a vast shadow against the sky. The familiar outlines of homes and businesses forever disappearing, consumed in an instant by a violent, seething darkness.

The monster moves with manic energy, rapidly crossing U.S. 422 and sweeping into Niles Park Plaza. Fragments of lumber and aluminum and steel erupt in all directions like the blast wave of a grenade. Roofs and walls sail away and break apart, adding to the ever-growing cloud of wreckage.

A large, bright-colored object whirls up into the air, spinning like a helicopter. And then another. And another. The shapes are distinct and immediately recognizable — vehicles. Ronnie’s stomach turns at the realization, but he can’t look away. He watches helplessly as one car is torn apart, disgorging its occupants. Within moments, they disappear into the middle of the raging maelstrom.

They will not be the last.

 

[Lake Martin EF4]

I can't believe I'm actually saying this, but I think I might finally be done. Well, done writing the article at least. I still have to finish preparing and uploading all the photos, inserting and formatting them, writing captions, etc, etc, etc. That's a huge pain in the money maker and I'm very much not looking forward to it, but y'all have no idea how relieved I am to be done with the article itself.

Although, even calling it an "article" is kinda stretching the meaning of the word to its breaking point lol. At 52,620 words, it's literally about the length of the average YA novel. Soo.. whoops. I also 100% refuse to proofread or try and polish up this damn behemoth, so expect some bad writing. Or worse writing than usual, I guess. At any rate, here's the intro:

The sky grows dark and threatening as swollen storm clouds roll in from the west, extinguishing the late-afternoon sun. Shade trees bend and creak in protest, their broad canopies quivering in the wind. Rain comes in fits and starts, spattering against the windshield in fat, heavy droplets.

None of it matters to Ronnie Grant. After one of the proudest and happiest days of his life, a few thundershowers won’t dampen his spirits. His daughter has just graduated high school — in a few months, she’ll begin her scholarship at a prestigious university halfway across the country. In the meantime, he and his wife Jill are heading out to celebrate at their favorite local restaurant.

A lineman for the utility company, Ronnie has lived in Northeast Ohio all his life. He’s driven this stretch of U.S. 422 so many times he can do it in his sleep, arcing north and west from Girard through the outskirts of Niles. As he crests a hill overlooking a commercial strip on the city’s northeast side, the gossamer veil of rain begins to lift.

His wife gasps and stiffens in her seat. He opens his mouth to speak but the words catch in his throat. Something is terribly wrong, and suddenly the whole world is unmoored from the flow of time. Seconds linger like minutes, unfolding in a stilted, stop-motion fashion that only adds to the deep and pervasive sense of unreality. Without thinking, he instinctively pulls off the highway and slides to a stop.

He can hardly process what he’s seeing, yet every image is seared into Ronnie’s brain with inexplicable and excruciating clarity. The black, debris-choked funnel, looming like a vast shadow against the sky. The familiar outlines of homes and businesses forever disappearing, consumed in an instant by a violent, seething darkness.

The monster moves with manic energy, rapidly crossing U.S. 422 and sweeping into Niles Park Plaza. Fragments of lumber and aluminum and steel erupt in all directions like the blast wave of a grenade. Roofs and walls sail away and break apart, adding to the ever-growing cloud of wreckage.

A large, bright-colored object whirls up into the air, spinning like a helicopter. And then another. And another. The shapes are distinct and immediately recognizable — vehicles. Ronnie’s stomach turns at the realization, but he can’t look away. He watches helplessly as one car is torn apart, disgorging its occupants. Within moments, they disappear into the middle of the raging maelstrom.

They will not be the last.

Whoa there! That's pretty damn awesome Loco!

 

[locomusic01]

Not planning on using these in my article so I figured I'd post them here. These are the earliest photos I've seen of Niles-Wheatland, taken just as it was leaving Newton Falls from a trailer park ~2 miles to the northeast. Apparently a couple people took photos from Newton Falls itself but I haven't found any yet.

 

[Juliett Bravo Kilo]

Not planning on using these in my article so I figured I'd post them here. These are the earliest photos I've seen of Niles-Wheatland, taken just as it was leaving Newton Falls from a trailer park ~2 miles to the northeast. Apparently a couple people took photos from Newton Falls itself but I haven't found any yet.

Interesting how it started off as a narrow stovepipe....reminds me of Andover 1991 in its early phase up until it was halfway through McConnell AFB when it transitioned into a multivortex wedge. It might be the quality of the photo, but it looks like there is a considerable amount of debris swirling around the funnel already.
Also, I seem to recall another set of photos of this thing while in open fields that I thought were before Newton Falls or maybe right after? It looked a bit wider in those, though.

 

[locomusic01]

Interesting how it started off as a narrow stovepipe....reminds me of Andover 1991 in its early phase up until it was halfway through McConnell AFB when it transitioned into a multivortex wedge. It might be the quality of the photo, but it looks like there is a considerable amount of debris swirling around the funnel already.
Also, I seem to recall another set of photos of this thing while in open fields that I thought were before Newton Falls or maybe right after? It looked a bit wider in those, though.

Yeah, it's hard to see with the low quality but there was already quite a lot of debris; most of Newton Falls wasn't hit that hard, but a cluster of houses on the very eastern edge of town got clobbered. And the photos you're thinking of were taken like.. 5 minutes later? Maybe even less than that? But the tornado pretty much hulked out in that time and grew into a pretty imposing stovepipe.

 

[Juliett Bravo Kilo]

Yeah, it's hard to see with the low quality but there was already quite a lot of debris; most of Newton Falls wasn't hit that hard, but a cluster of houses on the very eastern edge of town got clobbered. And the photos you're thinking of were taken like.. 5 minutes later? Maybe even less than that? But the tornado pretty much hulked out in that time and grew into a pretty imposing stovepipe.

I was wondering about how bad the damage in Newton Falls was....I guess the tornado was intensifying as it went through it?
I know it completely leveled a gas station on the edge of town, the pictures looked pretty impressive.
Does the F4 damage start in Lordstown or in areas between the two cities?

 

[locomusic01]

I was wondering about how bad the damage in Newton Falls was....I guess the tornado was intensifying as it went through it?
I know it completely leveled a gas station on the edge of town, the pictures looked pretty impressive.
Does the F4 damage start in Lordstown or in areas between the two cities?

Hit-or-miss through most of town (lots of F2/low-F3ish damage, a couple spots of high-F3+), but it really started ramping up as it approached the river. Specifically the east branch of the river.

Edit: Posted the wrong picture but whatever, I'm too tired to fix it lol. This is on the west bank of the river but the most intense damage was on the opposite side.

 

[Juliett Bravo Kilo]

Hit-or-miss through most of town (lots of F2/low-F3ish damage, a couple spots of high-F3+), but it really started ramping up as it approached the river. Specifically the east branch of the river.

Edit: Posted the wrong picture but whatever, I'm too tired to fix it lol. This is on the west bank of the river but the most intense damage was on the opposite side.

I'll see the right picture soon enough lol.
Also, why do you think this tornado's core was so tiny in relation to its overall circulation? It wasn't moving particularly fast or slow, just really strange.
Another thing I find interesting about this tornado is that it took awhile to fully intensify; most F4+ tornadoes seem to reach their maximum strength relatively quickly and maintain it for much of their path. This thing took awhile to hit F5 intensity, but when it hit it, maaaaaan. Lol.

 

[locomusic01]

It averaged ~42 mph, so it was scootin' along pretty good. Not nearly as fast as some of the tornadoes that day, but enough to introduce some flow asymmetry. Other than that I dunno. Many (most?) violent tornadoes only produce narrow swaths of extreme damage, so it's not unusual in that regard. Bridge Creek's F4-F5 swath wasn't that much wider, at least through Moore/OKC. The damage in Bridge Creek itself was just a whole other thing lol. I think what makes it weird is that in a lot of places there's like no real gradient of intermediate damage - it seems like it goes from complete obliteration straight to F1-F2 at most.

Anyway I'm rambling and I lost my train of thought. It did take a bit to intensify, but probably not as long as it seems. It's about 4.3 miles from touchdown to the first spot where I'd be confident saying there's at least threshold F4 damage. Another ~4.5 miles and you reach the spot of the first fatality, where it was probably at least high-end F4. Actually it seems to have produced some rather high-end vegetation damage right around the time those fat stovepipe pictures were taken, which is like 5.6 miles from the start of the path, but it didn't squarely hit anything substantial in that area so it's hard to say how strong it actually was.

 

[locomusic01]

Here's a few other random pics from Niles-Wheatland that I probably won't be using in my article. This is quite obviously from the Shadow Ridge development in Niles, where a handful of houses just got absolutely gollywalloped. Which I'm pretty sure isn't a word, but it seems appropriate.

One of many cars that had a bad time at Niles Park Plaza.

An even worse day at the Plaza. A firefighter who was there said he's pretty sure this is the car he saw that straight up had its snout ripped off. Like the whole entire thing, just cleaved off at the firewall. That might even be the front end sitting just off to its right? I dunno. The car over in the background on the right side didn't do so great either apparently.

This one didn't really catch my eye at first until I looked closer and realized this car appears to have folded up into a one-seater. Also, I thought that was mud plastered to the side of it, but now I'm not entirely sure. Multiple people + news reports mentioned that some cars in Niles ended up looking really pitted and like the paint had been sandblasted off. I dunno. Wish I had more pictures of this one from other angles.

No details on this one except that it's from Hubbard. I assume Kermont Heights, which is where several homes were swept away.

 

[locomusic01]

Oh, also, I posted this picture a while back and was kinda fuzzy on the details at the time. I knew it was from the Greenfield area (between Hermitage and Mercer) but that was about it. The guy who gave it to me said that someone was in it at the time and I was marveling at how they could've possibly survived. Well, turns out they didn't.. because no one was in it. The daughter of the guy who owned it said it was parked in their driveway and they weren't home at the time, but somehow in the immediate aftermath a rumor went around that they'd all been in it and were all killed. Which is pretty messed up.

Anywho, depending on exactly where in the driveway it was parked, the tornado hucked it somewhere in the range of ~200-250 yards.

 

[Juliett Bravo Kilo]

Here's a few other random pics from Niles-Wheatland that I probably won't be using in my article. This is quite obviously from the Shadow Ridge development in Niles, where a handful of houses just got absolutely gollywalloped. Which I'm pretty sure isn't a word, but it seems appropriate.

One of many cars that had a bad time at Niles Park Plaza.

An even worse day at the Plaza. A firefighter who was there said he's pretty sure this is the car he saw that straight up had its snout ripped off. Like the whole entire thing, just cleaved off at the firewall. That might even be the front end sitting just off to its right? I dunno. The car over in the background on the right side didn't do so great either apparently.

This one didn't really catch my eye at first until I looked closer and realized this car appears to have folded up into a one-seater. Also, I thought that was mud plastered to the side of it, but now I'm not entirely sure. Multiple people + news reports mentioned that some cars in Niles ended up looking really pitted and like the paint had been sandblasted off. I dunno. Wish I had more pictures of this one from other angles.

No details on this one except that it's from Hubbard. I assume Kermont Heights, which is where several homes were swept away.

Interesting how the toilet seat is still there....this happened with Grand Valley too.
Come to think of it, it's happened with lots of tornadoes.
Anyways, what I was getting at with core width and forward speed is that lots of fast-moving tornadoes (especially Dixie wedges) tend to have really skinny cores, whereas slow-movers like Bridge Creek-Moore, Noot Farm, Joplin, Jarrell and Loyal Valley have pretty wide ones. Probably something to do with duration of extreme winds but not sure.
The only other tornadoes I can think of with such a tiny core in relation to their circulation is Plainfield (10 yards at most) and Guin, based on some of the photographs I've been able to find of it.

 

[locomusic01]

Y'all ever been so overtired that you feel almost drunk and can't seem to keep your mouth shut (figuratively)? Because same. Anyway here's some pretty substantial tree damage from Kane. An older man was killed in a home that was demolished just behind the pile of stuff on the right.

 

[Juliett Bravo Kilo]

I dunno what has and hasn't been posted here (probably most of this has), but here's what I've got in my Guin folder:

A couple others:

1. Extreme wind-rowing and slabbed foundations visible here:




2. These both are apparently of William Bankhead forest damage:









3. This classic:

 

[Juliett Bravo Kilo]

Y'all ever been so overtired that you feel almost drunk and can't seem to keep your mouth shut (figuratively)? Because same. Anyway here's some pretty substantial tree damage from Kane. An older man was killed in a home that was demolished just behind the pile of stuff on the right.

Some real violent tree damage in the background here.