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Significant Tornado Events

locomusic01 said:
Probably not a huge number since this event received pretty thorough coverage, but no doubt there were some. Two of the deaths I mapped in Missouri were seriously injured people who died weeks later (nearly three months later in one case) but don't seem to have been officially counted. Occasionally there are also people who are counted who shouldn't be, like the woman who died of a heart attack near Alliance, MO despite the tornado missing her house by almost half a mile. Overall though, the death toll is probably somewhat higher than reported.
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I assuming that the 2 people who died weeks later after being fatally injured were the 2 other people in Annapolis besides Orso Kelly and Merrill Stewart based on where the points of the 14 dead in Missouri were, correct?
 
HAwkmoon said:
Damn. What year was this?
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1985. Some more from that KTA Hike webpage. Im pretty sure these arent on TornadoTalks article, These first three really show how widespread the devastation was. You can see tree after tree snapped and/or debarked:
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These next four are weaker, likely from the edge of the damage path:
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Uprooted and snapped trees:
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Edit: Found more, Another view of that cabin, you can kinda see how the trees protected it against the ferocious winds:
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Some uprooted trees:
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Brand new here. I remember this day well. It was a Friday, the last day of being a junior in high school. That night my oldest sister was graduating 8th grade. even going into the school that night, it was still hot and windy. It seemed strange. I read that the system was originally expected to hit Northwest Ohio, where I live. Because of the heat that morning on my arrival at school, I barely cracked the window on my car, when I came out after school, the dark maroon interior of my car was covered in dust, that's how windy the day was
 
If anyone is interested, I heavily study the 1974 Super Outbreak. There were tornadoes all around me that night, and I go to Xenia a lot to research that storm, since I only live 3-4 hours from there
 
AJS said:
Share away!
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I have seen some on here question the Xenia rating. I have a friend whose house was about one block away from the tornado, in the Arrowhead/Windsor Park area. After the tornado passed, they notice a hole the size of a basketball in the bathroom ceiling (where the were hiding), made by a purple wash cloth. They didn't have any purple cloths, and they don't know where it came from. Also, the tornado hit a moving Penn Central train going through the Main St. (US 35) crossing, knocking iirc, 6 cars carrying 30 brand new Ford Mustangs, throwing some of the train cars into the Kroger parking lot. I wont tell you what I have read about the condition of some of the bodies. A State Trooper stationed at one of the temporary morgues thought he could handle seeing the bodies after some of the wrecks that he handled. After looking at a couple of the bodies, he couldn't look at anymore because of the condition. One had a brick embedded in its forehead...
 
Juliett Bravo Kilo said:
This pic is remarkable. You can see the cabin still standing amongst all the leveled trees; turns out the sheer amount of trees likely shielded it from the brunt of the winds:

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On trees shielding from winds, yes absolutely. That's my situation where I live in a dense old-growth hardwood forest. When 'Helene' ripped through here official estimates were 60 MPH but myself and several others with Skywarn training who have always been accurate think it was closer to 70 in this area which would have positively blown my camper and me away- yet it didn't. One the ground here what I saw was somewhere like 45- 50 MPH gusts at worst. Now once the trees are gone it's a different story and some of them will have impacted whatever is left standing. This phenomena of 'shielding' is one of my biggest beefs with using contextuals to de-rate surveys (but let's not derail this thread discussing that aspect here please).

Another point here with the cabin is it's construction. This was built in the Depression by the CCC and much of what was built in that program remains in remarkable shape over 85 years later. That program wasn't meant to just give jobs to the unemployed, but to teach them a skilled trade and many of the 'teachers' were old-world craftsmen who really understood what their business was. They built to the highest standard possible given the constraints of having to use local materials and the technology available to them at the time. In many natural disasters newer work gets washed or blown away while the CCC work survives well. I'd rank that cabin somewhere equal to an extremely well-built home as far as wind resistance in the walls, though today's roofs are far better. It's still remarkable that it was left in this condition given the damage around it.
 
Today marks nineteen years since a deadly nighttime tornado traveled 41 miles from Smith Mills, KY through the southern portions of Evansville, IN, hitting a mobile home park and killing 20 people before dissipating near Gentryville, IN. The tornado crossed the Ohio River three times on its 41.3-mile path moving at times at 60 miles-per-hour. Ultimately the storm was responsible for 25 fatalities and 230+ injuries and is a prime example of just how dangerous nighttime tornadoes can be even with the advances and warning systems and communications.

Here's the Tornado Talk article on the tornado: https://www.tornadotalk.com/evansville-area-f3-tornado-november-6-2005/

Here's some photos of the damage below along with the only photo of the tornado itself taken by a webcam at Deaconess Hospital.

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Question...when I was a kid, probably back in the late '70's, I remember hearing about a tornado occurring, I believe out west, that came with apparently no hint of any bad weather. I have been searching for years, but cannot find anything about it. I am presently watching a 1980 episode of Quincy, and he briefly referenced it. Does anyone on here know what I am talking about?
 
buckeye05 said:
I’ve said this before, but estimating wind speed based on spiral markings is complete and utter pseudoscience. Unfortunately, Dr. Fujita used this method for some of his ratings, namely Goessel and Xenia. Both of those have undeserved reputations for being remarkably violent because of this. In reality, there wasn’t much that was really remarkable about them at all. Both would be rated EF4 today.

Oh and I know this is blasphemy, but I take Plainfield’s F5 rating with a healthy dose of skepticism. I mean come on it was based on CORN! Not removal of grass, topsoil, or any typical type of scouring that is known to be associated with violent tornadoes. I do not buy it.Yes, Fujita revolutionized the field, but people need to stop taking his old studies as gospel. Some of his methods and calls do not hold up to modern-day scrutiny.
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One thing about Xenia that I don't know how many know about, it threw a school bus onto a high school stage where students were rehearsing a play just moments before
 
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