I would strongly doubt it, not least because it occurred at night. And one didn't just go grab a film camera.
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Significant Tornado Events
- Thread starter locomusic01
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MNTornadoGuy
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Also video footage of tornadoes from the 1950s was very rare as not that many people owned video cameras yet especially in a rural Kansas town.
locomusic01
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Oh, sorry - it's kinda awkwardly worded but I assume he was referring to the damage rather than the tornado itself. Blackwell formed a few minutes before 9pm and was reasonably visible (a few people watched it form from 2-3 miles away), but after that the only people who saw either tornado did so via the incessant lightning flashes.
It's even less likely that the Udall tornado would've been filmed in particular because the area was mistakenly given the all-clear shortly before the tornado struck. The radar was badly attenuated and the meteorologists didn't understand what was happening, so they believed the threat had passed.
Lake Martin EF4
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There is also another reason why Blackwell could have been visible.
Simply put, the thing was glowing.
MNTornadoGuy
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Personally I’m a bit skeptical of historical reports of bizarre electrical activity associated with tornadoes as it is never seen in footage of tornadoes today. I believe the storm was just prolific lightning producer and people witnessed power flashes associated with the Udall/Blackwell tornadoes.
CheeselandSkies
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Video tape wouldn't become available to consumers until the mid-1970s (VHS and Betamax), portable cameras not until a few years later. Anything from earlier would have to have been shot on film.
I've got the paper on the supposed electrical phenomena associated with the Blackwell tornado. The Reddit poster is using sources that combine accounts of two different tornadoes, the one with 'the neighbours house' is from the description of an F3 at McKinney TX on May 3 1948.
I have several papers by Bernard Vonnegut on this topic, and it's all a bit far fetched to say the least. A particular notable instance was in describing the 1974 Huntsville tornado, where it was insisted that the phenomenon being described was not a power flash. The photographs clearly showed a power flash.
There are a few descriptions running around of things like St Elmo's Fire and other mysterious glows associated with tornadoes, but I am sceptical of them as most are quite old and we have had myriad powerful night tornadoes in more recent times without them being observed, let alone filmed.
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Juliett Bravo Kilo
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Speaking of filmed tornadoes, this is the first film of a tornado in the states. Taken near Corn, OK in 1951. What's interesting is that the tornado was anticyclonic.
Speaking weird electric phenomenon inside tornado, This video of Pilger around 1:33 worth mentioned. That thing just didn't look likes a normal spark produced by debris hitting.
Juliett Bravo Kilo
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So I was just looking through my files and whatnot and I found the Blackwell-Udall map that I totally forgot I made a while back. It's pretty rough, especially outside of those towns, but it kinda reminds me of the Greensburg family (the tornadoes were probably both wider than I have here at some points). The other interesting thing is, were there really only two tornadoes? There were a few rural homes destroyed roughly around the red mark here [edit: I marked the wrong area - it should be a little further north near the branch in the river], including one in which five kids were killed. The green mark is Udall. As you might be able to tell, that doesn't exactly line up. What's even more confusing is that there's a town (Oxford) south of the red mark that doesn't seem to have been hit, so.. wtf?
I never did the deaths for Udall at the time (obviously, there were a LOT of them), but I did for Blackwell:
This damage aerial from Greensburg (especially with the area of scouring) reminds me of Udall:
Udall scouring & damage aerial:
The more I read about Udall the more I'm pretty convinced it was basically Greensburg hitting a town at full on intensity. It also wouldn't surprise me if it was as wide as Greensburg at points.
Western_KS_Wx
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Reading Loco’s 1985 outbreak article (fantastic write up by the way) makes me wonder if Niles-Wheatland was really the strongest of the day. I wouldn’t doubt if some of the F4’s in Pennsylvania were capable of F5 damage at some point some that come to mind are Kane that produced absolutely incredible tree damage early in its life, Tionesta and Atlantic also caused incredible contextual damage as well and of course Moshannon State Forest which produced some of the most impressive tree and forest damage I’ve ever seen. Barrie ON probably reached F5 strength around Highway 400 as well, truly a historic day.
CalebRoutt
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I’ve got a couple of maps from the 1974 tornadoes sent to me from the NWS in Louisville Ky here’s the Hanover IN F4.
Sawmaster
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While there could be some electrical phenomena with tornadoes, I'm very skeptical of there being any more than a faint glow on a persistent basis, with perhaps some coronal discharge (St Elmo's fire) or ball lightning produced in a detached manner. Which does seem odd to me as there's a huge amount of static electricity being generated but it's probably finding it's way to ground at the base through the moisture in the funnel. With all the "filming" being done now, we'd have seen it by now if it truly does happen I think.
On the faint glow, at the periphery of the funnel there's got to be something happening where it meets the slower outer winds. Light, sound, electricity, and radio-frequency emissions are just parts of the spectrum and anything being generated there would likely be across all parts of the spectrum with visible light only being a small part overall. It may not be enough to even be captured on film or with digital camera sensors but it's been spoken of enough so that I think it can be real.
What really intrigues me is the RF phenomena, where tornadoes can often be detected by an AM or LF radio receiver. That too certainly exists, though I'm sure it would vary in strength. There's also a barometric pressure drop with tornadoes, as well as at least some confirmed low-frequency sound/vibrations. Hard to find any data on this to study, but it might be possible to set up a ground-sensor network to conform a tornado either on the ground or nearly so to compliment the radar, thus allowing for more precision of tornado warnings. Once some parameters could be determined, I can see where an automated solar-powered ground sensor could be made for maybe $10 or less on a large enough scale, and if these could be widely enough spaced could be economically viable as a 'ring of defense' around populated areas.
Phil
On the faint glow, at the periphery of the funnel there's got to be something happening where it meets the slower outer winds. Light, sound, electricity, and radio-frequency emissions are just parts of the spectrum and anything being generated there would likely be across all parts of the spectrum with visible light only being a small part overall. It may not be enough to even be captured on film or with digital camera sensors but it's been spoken of enough so that I think it can be real.
What really intrigues me is the RF phenomena, where tornadoes can often be detected by an AM or LF radio receiver. That too certainly exists, though I'm sure it would vary in strength. There's also a barometric pressure drop with tornadoes, as well as at least some confirmed low-frequency sound/vibrations. Hard to find any data on this to study, but it might be possible to set up a ground-sensor network to conform a tornado either on the ground or nearly so to compliment the radar, thus allowing for more precision of tornado warnings. Once some parameters could be determined, I can see where an automated solar-powered ground sensor could be made for maybe $10 or less on a large enough scale, and if these could be widely enough spaced could be economically viable as a 'ring of defense' around populated areas.
Phil
MNTornadoGuy
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To me it looks like a piece of debris being dragged along the ground generating sparks.
Lake Martin EF4
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On today's episode of Do You Recognize This Photo, another one claimed to be Barrie.
locomusic01
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Going back to the Udall/Greensburg comparison for a minute, I'm even more curious now whether Udall might've been two tornadoes (meaning three altogether w/Blackwell). I haven't gone really in-depth yet, but there appears to have been damage on the southeast edge of Oxford, basically due north of Oxford (where the five children were killed) and also further east of Oxford. And obviously Udall itself, which is offset from Oxford to the east by nearly 3 miles, was also devastated.
Just from a cursory review of things, along with this tracing of the storm's evolution on radar, it seems as though something like this best fits the evidence. This, of course, is really reminiscent of how the Greensburg supercell/tornado family evolved as well.
Just from a cursory review of things, along with this tracing of the storm's evolution on radar, it seems as though something like this best fits the evidence. This, of course, is really reminiscent of how the Greensburg supercell/tornado family evolved as well.
The Faith, SD EF2 is my guess.
Lake Martin EF4
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May 6, 1973 has to have one of the most hilarious track maps I've ever seen.
A whole bunch of random weak tornadoes, a few F2 tornadoes here and there, and then there's Valley Mills just chilling at the bottom of the map.
A whole bunch of random weak tornadoes, a few F2 tornadoes here and there, and then there's Valley Mills just chilling at the bottom of the map.
Speaking of random photographs, does anyone know anything about this photograph? I found it a few years ago on Alabama Pioneers, a paywalled website, with the heading 'a terrible tornado occurred in St Clair County on May 14th'. As the website is paywalled (if it loads at all!) I can't find out anything more.
The tornado the article refers to occurred on May 14, 1868. According to the Library of Congress the photo is a 1913 tornado from the Harris & Ewing Photo Collection, possibly something from the Omaha outbreak but no exact date is given.