Significant Tornado Events

[tornado examiner]

Nice finds! Here’s some more photos from damage south and north of town.
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These 3 are all taken just south of the elementary school where the highest concentration of EF5 damage took place.

Here’s some rather extreme tree and vegetation damage near the lake:
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Greensburg seems to me like one of the most photographed aftermaths ever….

 

[Western_KS_Wx]

Greensburg seems to me like one of the most photographed aftermaths ever….

There are quite a lot of photos from the tornado but most are within the downtown area or high school and big well. Finding photos of the most intense damage that occurred south of town, across the high school, along US-400 and in north Greensburg are incredibly hard to come by.

 

[tornado examiner]

There are quite a lot of photos from the tornado but most are within the downtown area or high school and big well. Finding photos of the most intense damage that occurred south of town, across the high school, along US-400 and in north Greensburg are incredibly hard to come by.

Ahh.

 

[Juliett Bravo Kilo]

Those Kane photos are incredible, I wouldn’t doubt in that rural area that it attained F5 intensity, honestly some of the most extreme forest/tree damage you’ll see. Tree damage lessened quite a bit as it entered the town itself but the tornado still caused F4 damage.

Yeah, Kane dodged a huge bullet; that the tornado had weakened to F4 and narrowed quite a bit by the time it reached the town. It probably would've done Smithville-type damage to the town if it had hit at full on intensity.

 

[locomusic01]

Since we're on the topic of 5/31/85 tree damage, I'm sure I've probably mentioned it before but the damage the Tionesta F4 did on German Hill is rather impressive. Not often you see virtually a whole swath of forest snapped within a few feet of the ground.

Also noteworthy is the pronounced convergence pattern Moshannon produced even despite the complex terrain (arrows & annotations aren't mine):

This spot east of Parker Dam State Park especially stands out.

 

[SHA]

Years ago Greg Forbes emailed me a conference preprint I have never seen online, that included these low-quality scan aerials of Moshannon forest damage at Little Medix Run and Burns Run, FWIW. Posting these and the earlier Tionesta color aerial just in case people haven't already come across them. The attached preprint scan is in disarray as received from Forbes. It also includes tree damage aerials from the June 2, 1998 outbreak.

 

[locomusic01]

Years ago Greg Forbes emailed me a conference preprint I have never seen online, that included these low-quality scan aerials of Moshannon forest damage at Little Medix Run and Burns Run, FWIW. Posting these and the earlier Tionesta color aerial just in case people haven't already come across them. The attached preprint scan is in disarray as received from Forbes. It also includes tree damage aerials from the June 2, 1998 outbreak.
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Nice, thanks! I tried reaching out to Dr. Forbes while I was researching my article (in part to see if I could get a copy of this paper) but never heard back from him. Anyway, the way the Moshannon tornado (and several of the others to a lesser extent) interacted with terrain throughout its path is endlessly fascinating. The effects are clearly evident both in aerial photos and in satellite imagery.

 

[Steel Central]

I though the scar was still visible on modern satellite (Google Maps), but as of recently its completely gone.


Makes me wonder how long the Tuscaloosa/Lake Martin/Louisville scars will last.

 

[Juliett Bravo Kilo]

I though the scar was still visible on modern satellite (Google Maps), but as of recently its completely gone.


Makes me wonder how long the Tuscaloosa/Lake Martin/Louisville scars will last.

Well, they're visible on bing maps:

Moshannon State Forest, PA

 

[atrainguy]

Moshannon State Forest, PA

I wonder how old the Bing imagery is. Looking on Bing Maps right now, I can easily find the Moshannon path just like in that image, as well as several other 1985 paths in PA. But the 2011 paths and the 2008 Menominee path that are so easy to find on recent Google Maps imagery are no where to be seen.

 

[locomusic01]

I wonder how old the Bing imagery is. Looking on Bing Maps right now, I can easily find the Moshannon path just like in that image, as well as several other 1985 paths in PA. But the 2011 paths and the 2008 Menominee path that are so easy to find on recent Google Maps imagery are no where to be seen.

It also matters when in the year the imagery was taken. I played around with this in LandsatLook a while back and IIRC I could just pick out parts of the path up to like 2009 or 2010, but only during certain months.

 

[Juliett Bravo Kilo]

I wonder how old the Bing imagery is. Looking on Bing Maps right now, I can easily find the Moshannon path just like in that image, as well as several other 1985 paths in PA. But the 2011 paths and the 2008 Menominee path that are so easy to find on recent Google Maps imagery are no where to be seen.

The thing with the Bing imagery is if you zoom in for a closer view the scar is no longer visible. What's remarkable are the scars that are still visible, like High Uintas Wilderness Utah and (I think) portions of Smithville and Hackleburg after all these years. It goes to show how violent tornadoes can alter the landscape for years, if not decades.

 

[TH2002]

Came across a previous post from @Marshal79344 regarding the Chapman tornado, and it included a better photo of this home:

And this really confused me because the photo clearly shows this home did have straight nailed studs, so I'm trying to understand what Tim Marshall meant when he said there weren't any stud connections? Perhaps he meant there were no hurricane straps, but what home in the Midwest is going to have hurricane straps to begin with? Also, there were homes in Moore w/ straight nailed studs that were rated EF5, including some that were presumably surveyed by Marshall himself... but wait, there's more!

What about the other brick home that everyone knows about when they think of Chapman? The primary reason for the downgrade was the 'not a totally clean sweep' argument. But let's see about this home in Moore... not a totally clean sweep, straight nailed studs, rated EF5.

Consistent application of the EF scale for sure... not expecting Grazulis to upgrade it based on how the discussion with Vilonia went, but hopefully at least one credible source will eventually give this tornado the EF5 rating it very much deserves.

 

[Juliett Bravo Kilo]

Came across a previous post from @Marshal79344 regarding the Chapman tornado, and it included a better photo of this home:

And this really confused me because the photo clearly shows this home did have straight nailed studs, so I'm trying to understand what Tim Marshall meant when he said there weren't any stud connections? Perhaps he meant there were no hurricane straps, but what home in the Midwest is going to have hurricane straps to begin with? Also, there were homes in Moore w/ straight nailed studs that were rated EF5, including some that were presumably surveyed by Marshall himself... but wait, there's more!

What about the other brick home that everyone knows about when they think of Chapman? The primary reason for the downgrade was the 'not a totally clean sweep' argument. But let's see about this home in Moore... not a totally clean sweep, straight nailed studs, rated EF5.

Consistent application of the EF scale for sure... not expecting Grazulis to upgrade it based on how the discussion with Vilonia went, but hopefully at least one credible source will eventually give this tornado the EF5 rating it very much deserves.

Considering Grazulis backpedaled on Vilonia I'm not placing much hope with Chapman either (or Chickasha, Goldsby, Tuscaloosa, Mayfield, etc.).

 

[Juliett Bravo Kilo]

Since we're on the topic of 5/31/85 tree damage, I'm sure I've probably mentioned it before but the damage the Tionesta F4 did on German Hill is rather impressive. Not often you see virtually a whole swath of forest snapped within a few feet of the ground.

Also noteworthy is the pronounced convergence pattern Moshannon produced even despite the complex terrain (arrows & annotations aren't mine):

This spot east of Parker Dam State Park especially stands out.

Yeah, so many tornadoes from this day levelled immense amounts of forest. I think the only other outbreaks with as much widespread forest damage are the 1974 and 2011 Super Outbreaks.
I've no doubt that Kane, Tionesta & Moshannon achieved F5 intensity, just didn't hit any DIs capable of registering it (which is good, obviously).

 

[Marshal79344]

I was peering through the NETR Historic Aerials archives and found the scar left behind of an "F2" that killed a few people when it swept away log cabins near the town of Wilbur, Michigan on June 8th, 1953. This is the oldest tornado scar I have in my archives so I thought it'd be cool to share.

 

[MNTornadoGuy]

ODOT has some very high-res aerial imagery from Xenia 1974.

 

[tornado examiner]

The griffins Georgia ef3 has been bumped up to a 160 mph ef3 with a peak width of 1.97 miles wide

 

[Lake Martin EF4]

The griffins Georgia ef3 has been bumped up to a 160 mph ef3 with a peak width of 1.97 miles wide

Darn so it wasn't 2 miles? RIP

 

[tornado examiner]

Darn so it wasn't 2 miles? RIP

Still likely one of if not the largest tornadoes in Georgia history