Significant Tornado Events (3 Viewers)

[Marshal79344]

Out of curiosity, what caused Pampa to become stationary for several minutes as it was over the industrial park?

I looked at GR Level 3 data for the event, and the supercell responsible for the Pampa tornado seemed to be along a "boundary" of some sort, extremely similar to the Jarrell setup of 97. That may play a part in the tornado's erratic movement.

 

[Marshal79344]

I looked at GR Level 3 data for the event, and the supercell responsible for the Pampa tornado seemed to be along a "boundary" of some sort, extremely similar to the Jarrell setup of 97. That may play a part in the tornado's erratic movement.

The supercells that produced the Allison and Kellerville tornadoes were right-moving supercells in the open warm sector, not under the influence of a boundary.

 

[Robinson lee]

The supercells that produced the Allison and Kellerville tornadoes were right-moving supercells in the open warm sector, not under the influence of a boundary.

Some studies suggest that when the storm is on a certain boundary and the dominant wind is weak, the boundary will guide the direction of the storm. I think it's probably water vapor and upwelling that sustained the storm. In addition, can you provide the GR3 data of Pampa, which I am very curious about? I'm curious about that

 

[andyhb]

Wow. I'd be very interested in seeing that. That's like the holy grail of tornado footage.

The problem is KWTX still has copyright over it so it can't get uploaded. It would really just help if they would upload the damn thing themselves instead of being so pushy about it. Deleted the post for good measure, but the footage is 23 f*cking years old and it's a historic event for their area.

 

[AngelAndHisWx]

Oy. So I'm the one who has the KWTX video of Jarrell. It was acquired second hand from a chase DVD compiled by a small group of chasers in the early 2000s, and was supplied by Lon Curtis. He says the video is still under their copyright, hence why uploads are scarce. My guess is it's a combination of them knowing they have the best video of the tornado and wanting to milk it dry, and because of copyrights with Nat Geo and Discovery Channel as well. Obviously I can't upload the video, even though I want to (home videos and chase videos are one thing, pro video from a television station is another), but what I can do is supply an image sequence taken at that critical transition period (as far as I'm aware, those are the only few seconds of video not available online). It's only 56 images (the segment is 56 seconds), but maybe it could be of use.

 

[Juliett Bravo Kilo]

Pretty good documentary on Andover, contains quite a bit of damage footage I haven't seen elsewhere:

 

[Marshal79344]

I’ll get the GR3 files loaded and make a video loop of June 8th, 1995, but here are some damage pictures from the May 25, 1896 Oakwood-Ortonville-Thomas, MI EF5. They appear to show leveled homes and even debarked shrubs

 

[Juliett Bravo Kilo]

I’ll get the GR3 files loaded and make a video loop of June 8th, 1995, but here are some damage pictures from the May 25, 1896 Oakwood-Ortonville-Thomas, MI EF5. They appear to show leveled homes and even debarked shrubs

Ah yes, the May 1896 outbreak sequence is one I'd love to get more photos of, especially Sherman; it seems to have been extraordinarily intense from the reports and few photographs available.

 

[Marshal79344]

Sherman was a very interesting tornado. From my research the funnel initially swept many homes away outside of town but contracted to 60 yards, and remained extraordinarily intense. Reports are that grass was scoured from lawns, an iron bridge was twisted into many pieces and some thrown deep into the ground, a brick building swept away with bricks found embedded into the ground some 700 meters away from the foundation, trees stripped of bark or even pulled out of the ground with their roots and transformed into huge flying missiles. Unfortunately I only know of 3 photographs. I was able to find these pictures of the May 17, 1896 Seneca-Reserve KS EF5 that reached 2 miles wide:

 

[MNTornadoGuy]

The tornado outbreak sequence also produced the killer St Louis F4 tornado. Even though the damage in St Louis itself wasn’t too impressive, it did produce near-F5 damage in East St Louis.

 

[andyhb]

I’ll get the GR3 files loaded and make a video loop of June 8th, 1995, but here are some damage pictures from the May 25, 1896 Oakwood-Ortonville-Thomas, MI EF5. They appear to show leveled homes and even debarked shrubs

Damn those are pretty impressive.

 

[Juliett Bravo Kilo]

Sherman was a very interesting tornado. From my research the funnel initially swept many homes away outside of town but contracted to 60 yards, and remained extraordinarily intense. Reports are that grass was scoured from lawns, an iron bridge was twisted into many pieces and some thrown deep into the ground, a brick building swept away with bricks found embedded into the ground some 700 meters away from the foundation, trees stripped of bark or even pulled out of the ground with their roots and transformed into huge flying missiles. Unfortunately I only know of 3 photographs. I was able to find these pictures of the May 17, 1896 Seneca-Reserve KS EF5 that reached 2 miles wide:

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Those Seneca photos are pretty impressive. So, regarding Sherman this imgur collection is the best I've come across:

A few pictures of note:



If you look closely you can see what looks like debarked low-lying shrubs or trees, hard to tell for certain with the B&W quality.


I would love to find a picture of this bridge before the tornado for comparison, not quite sure how to assess the damage and sense of scale in this photograph.


I think there is severe ground scouring visible here in this third pic, again hard to tell with the low quality B&W photography.


Would love to find pictures of this 'beautiful grove' before the tornado for sense of scale and clearer reference as well.
I highly recommend browsing through the other photographs (close to a dozen) on this imgur link, as it's the best I've ever found of Sherman.

 

[AngelAndHisWx]

Alrighty, I have no idea how forums work so bear with me. This is a gif of Jarrell from the KWTX video. They were right next to the tornado as it started to transition.

Looks like I can't upload all 56 images sadly, so only eight images it is. They're originally from a 480i source (because 1997), but I upscaled and deinterlaced to 1080p.

 

[Juliett Bravo Kilo]

Alrighty, I have no idea how forums work so bear with me. This is a gif of Jarrell from the KWTX video. They were right next to the tornado as it started to transition.
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Looks like I can't upload all 56 images sadly, so only eight images it is. They're originally from a 480i source (because 1997), but I upscaled and deinterlaced to 1080p.
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I guess you can't show a gif of the tornado going full multivortex? The gif here looks like the tornado practically disappeared and a new one took its place....real fascinating stuff.

 

[AngelAndHisWx]

I guess you can't show a gif of the tornado going full multivortex? The gif here looks like the tornado practically disappeared and a new one took its place....real fascinating stuff.

But here's the thing. The funnel aloft stayed and it even had a debris cloud in tow that can be seen going left of the billboard poll. It's like when Dodge City Number 1 did its multivortex deal and the bottom broke off and another vortex formed as the new bottom, leaving the old one orphaned and to spin itself out. And sadly I don't have the multivortex phase. There's a gap in the recording between rope disappearing and the full condensed cone phase.

 

[Juliett Bravo Kilo]

I looked at GR Level 3 data for the event, and the supercell responsible for the Pampa tornado seemed to be along a "boundary" of some sort, extremely similar to the Jarrell setup of 97. That may play a part in the tornado's erratic movement.

Interesting, Pampa's movement was also similar to Jarrell's, in how after touching down it moved at a slow to moderate pace, briefly sped up, became stationary for several minutes while sitting on a human structure (in this case Pampa's industrial park) then resumed moving forward for a couple more miles than abruptly dissipating.

Also, this is pretty crazy, an F3 tornado struck the Pampa Industrial Yard in 1982, exact same location as the 1995 storm: http://www.depts.ttu.edu/nwi/Pubs/ReportsJournals/ReportsJournals/D5-19-82-Tor-pampa.pdf