Significant Tornado Events

[TH2002]

Sigh, yes. I only did that rule after making the map, when I remembered Capitol did all it's extreme damage in SD, yet I had colored MT EF5.

I'll shut up now. Posting the map here was a mistake.

I wouldn't say it was a mistake; just remember that this is a forum so when you post something, you set the stage for someone to disagree with you.

I personally applaud you for even attempting to create such a map, and I honestly thought about taking a stab at my own before I realized that theree's simply too much uncertainty in my own analysis. For example I can't seem to decide whether the most intense tornado in my state was an EF2 or EF3; there are some potential pre-1950 examples that could be F3 but I'd have to do more digging.

 

[locomusic01]

Sigh, yes. I only did that rule after making the map, when I remembered Capitol did all it's extreme damage in SD, yet I had colored MT EF5.

I'll shut up now. Posting the map here was a mistake.

It's all good. People get cranky when it comes to tornado ratings, but personally I think it's useful to see differing opinions and posts that bring up new topics of discussion.

 

[locomusic01]

Btw, got some preliminary tracks for other tornadoes from the New Richmond event:

I'm quite confident the northern (Little Carnelian Lake) and southern (Hastings) tornadoes are actually tornadoes. Little Carnelian Lake only hit a few homes, but it reportedly blew them away and "stripped vegetation" near the lake. Bit vague but I assume it refers to tree damage. The Hastings-area tornado seems to have hit more stuff but did less intense damage, probably like F2-F3ish range from the accounts I've seen so far. The one south of Stillwater I chalked up to straight-line winds at first, but then I found an account of a man who saw the "whirlwind" while he was traveling home and apparently watched it carry most of a house through the air.

Another interesting thing: a bunch of accounts from people who were there tell variations of the same general story. The New Richmond tornado (or possibly its predecessor if it cycled) was traveling sort of north-northeast until a second storm (with its own funnel, which most people say was still aloft) swept in from the Stillwater area and "merged" with it, at which point the New Richmond tornado shifted more northeasterly/briefly almost east-northeasterly. This allegedly happened near Boardman, which is just NE of the first fatality. You can see the track does shift somewhat in that area, so I'm curious whether the storm south of Stillwater might've swept eastward and interacted with it at that point.

 

[MNTornadoGuy]

Btw, got some preliminary tracks for other tornadoes from the New Richmond event:

I'm quite confident the northern (Little Carnelian Lake) and southern (Hastings) tornadoes are actually tornadoes. Little Carnelian Lake only hit a few homes, but it reportedly blew them away and "stripped vegetation" near the lake. Bit vague but I assume it refers to tree damage. The Hastings-area tornado seems to have hit more stuff but did less intense damage, probably like F2-F3ish range from the accounts I've seen so far. The one south of Stillwater I chalked up to straight-line winds at first, but then I found an account of a man who saw the "whirlwind" while he was traveling home and apparently watched it carry most of a house through the air.

Another interesting thing: a bunch of accounts from people who were there tell variations of the same general story. The New Richmond tornado (or possibly its predecessor if it cycled) was traveling sort of north-northeast until a second storm (with its own funnel, which most people say was still aloft) swept in from the Stillwater area and "merged" with it, at which point the New Richmond tornado shifted more northeasterly/briefly almost east-northeasterly. This allegedly happened near Boardman, which is just NE of the first fatality. You can see the track does shift somewhat in that area, so I'm curious whether the storm south of Stillwater might've swept eastward and interacted with it at that point.

There was widespread heavy rain over the Twin Cities area on the same day. I wonder if the New Richmond supercell formed at the eastern edge of a MCS and interacted with some mesoscale boundary placed down by the MCS.

 

[J-Rab]

In doing more research, it turns out that the real problem in New Richmond was an appalling lack of cannons.

Lol… if only Moore would have known!

 

[A Guy]

Tornado Archive is engaging in an interesting exercise where they're attempting to construct somewhat more detailed paths of certain tornadoes (though not 2011 lol), especially quite old ones. This seem to be based mostly off Grazulis.

One they've tackled is the Bergens-Sylvania tornado from April 24 1908. This tornado or tornado family is pretty much unique in the era in having a reasonably detailed track map, with times no less (that taken crudely, 93 miles and 95 minutes from Dora to Sylvania, give a speed of 59 MPH).

I've had my own go at creating a path, marking the settlements on the old map in pink (and one point for where it is shown heading near the Walker Co boundary). Unfortunately the old map is not very precise. I'm curious as to how TA came up with some of their curves, especially putting the track north of Dora which doesn't fit the descriptions. The thin line is my track, the thick the original.

 

[locomusic01]

There was widespread heavy rain over the Twin Cities area on the same day. I wonder if the New Richmond supercell formed at the eastern edge of a MCS and interacted with some mesoscale boundary placed down by the MCS.

Yeah, there was a rather large swath of damaging straight-line winds as well, and the storm complex appears to have basically traveled all the way up into the UP/Lake Superior.

 

[CheeselandSkies]

Not really that significant in the grand scheme of things, but it was locally significant. Today is the anniversary of the June 23, 2004 Wisconsin outbreak. It ranked at the time as Wisconsin's fourth most prolific daily outbreak, with seventeen tornadoes (pushed down to 5th by the Stoughton outbreak 14 months later). One of the tornadoes was rated F3 and caused one death, along with at least two (perhaps three, detailed survey information is a little difficult to find) others rated F2. Interestingly, only a severe thunderstorm watch was in effect. The storms were initially an MCS/bow echo moving east-southeastward into west-central Wisconsin, when a couple of supercells unexpectedly developed just ahead of it, along with the MCS itself developing an intense mesovortex/embedded supercell.

One supercell produced an F1 on the west side of Madison, close to where I live and work now. It later passed not too far north of Stoughton. It was no longer tornadic at that time but from the road outside our house I could see some very low-hanging, ominous scud clouds and an extremely intense lightning show. Unfortunately, the Hi8 camcorder I had at the time chose that moment to suffer a tape jam (which, thankfully it did not do during the 2005 tornado).

Sent from my Pixel 4a using Tapatalk

 

[Juliett Bravo Kilo]

Yeah, there was a rather large swath of damaging straight-line winds as well, and the storm complex appears to have basically traveled all the way up into the UP/Lake Superior.

It'd be interesting if a tornado was spawned over Lake Superior....it could travel dozens of miles across it without hitting land and no one would ever know.

 

[Juliett Bravo Kilo]

Tornado Archive is engaging in an interesting exercise where they're attempting to construct somewhat more detailed paths of certain tornadoes (though not 2011 lol), especially quite old ones. This seem to be based mostly off Grazulis.

One they've tackled is the Bergens-Sylvania tornado from April 24 1908. This tornado or tornado family is pretty much unique in the era in having a reasonably detailed track map, with times no less (that taken crudely, 93 miles and 95 minutes from Dora to Sylvania, give a speed of 59 MPH).

I've had my own go at creating a path, marking the settlements on the old map in pink (and one point for where it is shown heading near the Walker Co boundary). Unfortunately the old map is not very precise. I'm curious as to how TA came up with some of their curves, especially putting the track north of Dora which doesn't fit the descriptions. The thin line is my track, the thick the original.

View attachment 14688

View attachment 14689

Interesting, this thing's path is similar to Rainsville of 2011.

 

[locomusic01]

One of the accounts I've read of New Richmond comes from a woman named Ophelia Hogbottom. It's not much of an account, but I just felt like I really needed to share that. Ophelia Hogbottom is a first-ballot Hall of Namer if I've ever seen one.

And now, back to your regularly scheduled programming: it figures that I'd find a map of New Richmond's track after I spent the better part of two days creating one by plotting out hundreds of damage points lol. It's off a bit in some places, but it's surprisingly good for the time period. Even the width of the path is fairly close.

 

[Lake Martin EF4]

One of the accounts I've read of New Richmond comes from a woman named Ophelia Hogbottom. It's not much of an account, but I just felt like I really needed to share that. Ophelia Hogbottom is a first-ballot Hall of Namer if I've ever seen one.

And now, back to your regularly scheduled programming: it figures that I'd find a map of New Richmond's track after I spent the better part of two days creating one by plotting out hundreds of damage points lol. It's off a bit in some places, but it's surprisingly good for the time period. Even the width of the path is fairly close.

I'm guessing you finally picked New Richmond over Blackwell. Hopefully this article doesn't take an entire year to create.

 

[A Guy]

One of the accounts I've read of New Richmond comes from a woman named Ophelia Hogbottom. It's not much of an account, but I just felt like I really needed to share that. Ophelia Hogbottom is a first-ballot Hall of Namer if I've ever seen one.

And now, back to your regularly scheduled programming: it figures that I'd find a map of New Richmond's track after I spent the better part of two days creating one by plotting out hundreds of damage points lol. It's off a bit in some places, but it's surprisingly good for the time period. Even the width of the path is fairly close.

[snip]

That's a very impressive map for the era. Don't see too many of those.

 

[MNTornadoGuy]

One of the accounts I've read of New Richmond comes from a woman named Ophelia Hogbottom. It's not much of an account, but I just felt like I really needed to share that. Ophelia Hogbottom is a first-ballot Hall of Namer if I've ever seen one.

And now, back to your regularly scheduled programming: it figures that I'd find a map of New Richmond's track after I spent the better part of two days creating one by plotting out hundreds of damage points lol. It's off a bit in some places, but it's surprisingly good for the time period. Even the width of the path is fairly close.

New Richmond has always been a pretty interesting event to me as it is an unprecedented event for the Twin Cities area in terms of the level of destruction and death total. It was likely one of the most violent tornadoes of the 19th century.

 

[locomusic01]

That's a very impressive map for the era. Don't see too many of those.

Yeah, I was pleasantly surprised. Probably helped a lot that it was the only major tornado in that time period and it happened like 30 miles outside of the Twin Cities, so it was a pretty major story for the Star Tribune (which is where the map comes from). Or I guess it was just the Tribune back then.

New Richmond has always been a pretty interesting event to me as it is an unprecedented event for the Twin Cities area in terms of the level of destruction and death total. It was likely one of the most violent tornadoes of the 19th century.

I agree. Speaking of which, a few days ago I came across an anecdote that I really need to find again because apparently I forgot to add it to my Scrivener. Anyway, it was from a man who'd been injured as a teenager in the 1860 Camanche, IA tornado (which itself probably warrants a spot on that list). I don't recall his exact words, and I don't remember off-hand whether he was in New Richmond at the time or arrived a short time after, but the gist of it was that nothing compared to what he saw in New Richmond.

 

[Lake Martin EF4]

Also, somewhat related to the time period, who the heck thought it was a good idea to ban the word "tornado"?

 

[MNTornadoGuy]

Yeah, I was pleasantly surprised. Probably helped a lot that it was the only major tornado in that time period and it happened like 30 miles outside of the Twin Cities, so it was a pretty major story for the Star Tribune (which is where the map comes from). Or I guess it was just the Tribune back then.


I agree. Speaking of which, a few days ago I came across an anecdote that I really need to find again because apparently I forgot to add it to my Scrivener. Anyway, it was from a man who'd been injured as a teenager in the 1860 Camanche, IA tornado (which itself probably warrants a spot on that list). I don't recall his exact words, and I don't remember off-hand whether he was in New Richmond at the time or arrived a short time after, but the gist of it was that nothing compared to what he saw in New Richmond.

Something interesting about the New Richmond tornado outbreak is that it was not the only killer tornado on that day, there was a deadly F2 that struck near Deer Park WI and killed a person in a cellar. Something that is also interesting is that there were 2 killer F4s on the day before and after New Richmond

 

[MNTornadoGuy]

Also, somewhat related to the time period, who the heck thought it was a good idea to ban the word "tornado"?

The government was afraid of causing panic if tornadoes were mentioned in the daily forecast. Keep in mind this was in an era where severe weather forecasting was in its infancy and tornado formation was still mysterious to meteorologists.

 

[locomusic01]

Something interesting about the New Richmond tornado outbreak is that it was not the only killer tornado on that day, there was a deadly F2 that struck near Deer Park WI and killed a person in a cellar. Something that is also interesting is that there were 2 killer F4s on the day before and after New Richmond

Yeah, I have that death (and the others northeast of New Richmond) as a continuation of the F5's path on my map right now, but they were probably caused by two or even three separate tornadoes. Just gotta figure out exactly where the breaks occurred.

I haven't gotten much into them yet, but I'm hoping I can find enough info to put together reasonable paths for the Homer-Salix and Herman F4s. Not strictly necessary, but I'd still like to include them.

 

[tornado examiner]

lmfao...why the heck is there an EF2 with a path length of 234 miles??? this needs to be fixed XD...as well as all those other grossly distorted and clearly inaccurate track lengths...i know this isn't really supposed to go here but i was browsing tornadoes with exceptional track lengths and discovered this non-sense lol. oh the things you'll come across while doing research.