Significant Tornado Events

[MNTornadoGuy]

Okay, updated my map.

Link:

June 11-13, 1899 Outbreak Sequence - Google My Maps

June 11-13, 1899 Outbreak Sequence

www.google.com

Still not 100% certain on everything, but I feel pretty good about it. There may or may not be a couple more deaths to add w/the later tornadoes, and obviously a lot more deaths to add w/New Richmond. Grazulis has a death south of Deer Park but, as far as I can tell, he seems to be referring to a man who lived in that area but was actually killed in downtown New Richmond. That's happened with several people and it's frustrating trying to figure out where they were actually killed. One or possibly two other people may have been killed in the Deer Park tornado, but all I've found so far is early reports that they were "expected to die."

Also, there were apparently multiple barns blown away, houses damaged and livestock hurt/killed like due east of Clear Lake as well, in a village that no longer exists called Willoville. No idea if that was tornadic or straight-line damage. Although, to make it even more confusing, two men wrote an account of watching the tornado from a distance around this area and seeing it "split," with one going north of Clear Lake and the other going south/east.

Who the hell knows, man.

It seems like the New Richmond storm was a very complex and prolific tornado family. I wonder if the environment that day resembled other Plains tornado family days.

 

[AngelAndHisWx]

High quality frame grabs of the Seward F4, last frame being a few moments before it started producing its F4 damage. Very lucky that one of the few videos of it was with a very high quality camcorder. The video is online, but these are from the original tape, so quality should be much crisper. Bill Reid was further south on the same highway as the farm that received F4 damage. Never knew the F4 rating was during the tornado’s shrinking stage!

 

[tornado examiner]

i wonder if theres any tornadoes that haven't been brough up here

 

[Lake Martin EF4]

i wonder if theres any tornadoes that haven't been brough up here

Well, there's that terrifying "rolling fog bank" Henderson Mountain F3 of March 27, 1994...Or the Tallulah Falls F3...Or most of the tornadoes that day besides Piedmont.

 

[Lake Martin EF4]

Tom G just added the 5/24/11 outbreak. Apparently he spent so long mulling over Joplin that he forgot about it.


3 F4, 1 F5. Chickasha and Goldsby stay EF4.

EDIT: Book's also releasing January 2, 2023.

 

[Western_KS_Wx]

Tom G just added the 5/24/11 outbreak. Apparently he spent so long mulling over Joplin that he forgot about it.


3 F4, 1 F5. Chickasha and Goldsby stay EF4.

EDIT: Book's also releasing January 2, 2023.

I wonder if someone influenced him or had some deciding factor to keep Vilonia and these tornadoes at EF4. At one point he had the Vilonia tornado at a 5 before downgrading it so it seems like that might be the case. These 3 tornadoes are much more deserving F5 candidates than several of the older official 5’s he’s listed. Who knows at this point.

 

[Lake Martin EF4]

As the Picher, OK tornado weakened, the parent supercell spawned another tornado which the original tornado was absorbed into - the new tornado also intensifed to EF4 before striking Neosho, Missouri.

Also replying to an over year old message but wasn't Picher-Neosho all one tornado?

 

[tornado examiner]

what does this guy rate winterset and black creek?

 

[tornado examiner]

also. does anyone have any high quality photos showing some of the worst vegetation damage from the mayfield tornado?

 

[OHWX97]

Also replying to an over year old message but wasn't Picher-Neosho all one tornado?

It was one continuous damage path, however, the Picher tornado began weakening east of Quapaw and merged with a new tornado immediately after crossing I-44.

 

[Lake Martin EF4]

It was one continuous damage path, however, the Picher tornado began weakening east of Quapaw and merged with a new tornado immediately after crossing I-44.
View attachment 14860

Oh so it straight up did the full Gainesville.

Also gotta love the place names being in Comic Sans.

 

[Juliett Bravo Kilo]

I wonder if someone influenced him or had some deciding factor to keep Vilonia and these tornadoes at EF4. At one point he had the Vilonia tornado at a 5 before downgrading it so it seems like that might be the case. These 3 tornadoes are much more deserving F5 candidates than several of the older official 5’s he’s listed. Who knows at this point.

Yeah lots of people on this thread say that Grazulis is making his own decisions because he's retired and therefore has nothing to lose but given Goldsby, Chickasha and apparently he is also going with EF4 for Vilonia I can't help but wonder if Marshall or others are influencing/intimidating him into certain decisions. I wonder what he's gonna rate Chapman 2016 and if Tuscaloosa-Birmingham will get upgraded to EF5 or not with him either. I wonder if the two EF4s from the Quad-State Supercell will be upgraded to EF5 or not in his new book. Probably shouldn't get my hopes up. I'm probably not gonna purchase the book either way....

 

[Lake Martin EF4]

Yeah lots of people on this thread say that Grazulis is making his own decisions because he's retired and therefore has nothing to lose but given Goldsby, Chickasha and apparently he is also going with EF4 for Vilonia I can't help but wonder if Marshall or others are influencing/intimidating him into certain decisions. I wonder what he's gonna rate Chapman 2016 and if Tuscaloosa-Birmingham will get upgraded to EF5 or not with him either. I wonder if the two EF4s from the Quad-State Supercell will be upgraded to EF5 or not in his new book. Probably shouldn't get my hopes up. I'm probably not gonna purchase the book either way....

Already know the answer with 4/27: 4 EF5s like official.

 

[locomusic01]

So this is potentially interesting. I've done a fair bit of research so far on the Herman, NE F4 from the day after New Richmond and it's safe to say it was very violent, but I found a new account today that caught my attention. It seems, at least according to this eyewitness, that the tornado tore sidewalks out of the ground in town and scattered them. That obviously raises a bunch of questions - what kind of sidewalks were they? how widespread was this phenomenon? were the sidewalks flush/nearly flush with the ground or just sitting on top of it? etc. - but it's not something I've encountered very often.

Actually, I ran into the same thing with New Richmond as well. Several accounts mention sidewalks being torn from the ground and hurled away, but again there are important details missing. I know in New Richmond the sidewalks were mostly all cut into the ground, but some were wood planks and some were concrete, and it's not really clear which ones were pulled out. I assume it was probably some of the wood sections, but who knows. Hopefully I can find some more info to clear it up.

Sidewalks are sorta visible in a few of the pictures from Herman and it looks like they might be concrete, but I really can't tell. Of course, the other thing is that damage accounts from this era (any era really, but especially this one) can be a bit.. creative lol. I tend not to put too much stock into things unless I can at least get multiple sources. At any rate, it's pretty intriguing if nothing else.

 

[tornado examiner]

things like that are what set extremely violent tornadoes apart from all the rest. where very low to the ground objects like sidewalks, road ways, concrete car stops, and...perhaps, a large concrete floor slab...(bremen kentucky) are damaged or destroyed. those kinds of feats show very very powerful ground level winds. EF5 level winds in most case's. imo. (including bremen)

 

[xJownage]

Yeah lots of people on this thread say that Grazulis is making his own decisions because he's retired and therefore has nothing to lose but given Goldsby, Chickasha and apparently he is also going with EF4 for Vilonia I can't help but wonder if Marshall or others are influencing/intimidating him into certain decisions. I wonder what he's gonna rate Chapman 2016 and if Tuscaloosa-Birmingham will get upgraded to EF5 or not with him either. I wonder if the two EF4s from the Quad-State Supercell will be upgraded to EF5 or not in his new book. Probably shouldn't get my hopes up. I'm probably not gonna purchase the book either way....

Honestly, Vilonia is still the only one I have a real issue with. The rest I understand exactly why they were rated the way they were. The only other one I have any sort of strong feelings towards is Goldsby. Chapman, Tuscaloosa, and Mayfield are all well understood as to why an EF-5 rating wasn't given.

 

[tornado examiner]

not really tho...mayfield deserved an EF5 rating based on contextual damage and a few structures possibly. and would have been rated EF5 in the past.

 

[xJownage]

not really tho...mayfield deserved an EF5 rating based on contextual damage and a few structures possibly. and would have been rated EF5 in the past.

I still have not seen a single piece of structural evidence put forward and broken down by anybody that would support an EF-5 rating. Contextual damage cannot be used to assign an EF-5 rating without a building that fits the qualifications for it in the first place. None of the previously assigned EF-5 ratings were like that either so I don't know where this misconception about how EF-5s are assigned came from.

I saw a couple pictures when the tornado first happened that were all not properly anchored, and one using cinderblocks, that people said were EF-5 damage and it just wasn't true. Present some evidence or stop arguing the same thing without it over and over, it's really tiring.

 

[tornado examiner]

im not even gonna try to defend what nws paducah did for those tornadoes. they rated a large swept well bolted bolted duplex in bowling green mid range EF2 for crying out loud. and all the damage from those tornadoes proves that the scale needs major revision. either fix the scale too where it's not stupidly strict or remove the EF5 rating all together.

 

[tornado examiner]

the mayfield tornado obviously had immense power and was likely one of the strongest tornadoes in recent history. there's absolutely zero chance that it didn't harbor EF5 level winds. so the scale needs fixing now...