Significant Tornado Events

[pohnpei]

Are there any examples of homes with cinder-block foundations being given an F/EF5 rating?

I read from Tim Marshall's articles that basically tornados before early 90s didn't take too much building quality problems into consideration when giving a rating. But I am not sure if any tornados were rated F5 based on houses of clinder block foundation . I remembered that I can only find some clinder bolck foundation houses swept away in terms of Sprio OK F5 in 1976 and it was also considered F4 rating by Grazulis. For most of F5 tornados several decades ago it's hard to investigate the details of the construction quality of these houses through some few pic like the space of each anchor bolt or the type of washers and nuts they use and install.(except for tornados like Ruskin Height 1957 which had clear photos showed these details.) When comes into era of EF scale, there was houses of 4-6ft straight nailed connection with missing bolts but strong surrounding damage had been rated EF5(Moore 2013). There was well built houses with foundation not swept clean but strong and weird surrounding damage occured had been rated EF5(Rainsville 2011). But it's hard to imagine tornados can been rated EF5 due to the damage of houses with clinder block foundation.

 

[buckeye05]

Are there any examples of homes with cinder-block foundations being given an F/EF5 rating?

Yup! Rainsville 2011. Didn’t sweep away a single poured concrete foundation with bolts-type house. Was initially rated EF4 because of this. It was upgraded to EF5 months later based on overwhelming contextual evidence.

I don’t know if that would go over well today. Things started getting a little more conservative again ratings wise starting around 2014.

 

[pohnpei]

I read from Tim Marshall's articles that basically tornados before early 90s didn't take too much building quality problems into consideration when giving a rating. But I am not sure if any tornados were rated F5 based on houses of clinder block foundation . I remembered that I can only find some clinder bolck foundation houses swept away in terms of Sprio OK F5 in 1976 and it was also considered F4 rating by Grazulis. For most of F5 tornados several decades ago it's hard to investigate the details of the construction quality of these houses through some few pic like the space of each anchor bolt or the type of washers and nuts they use and install.(except for tornados like Ruskin Height 1957 which had clear photos showed these details.) When comes into era of EF scale, there was houses of 4-6ft straight nailed connection with missing bolts but strong surrounding damage had been rated EF5(Moore 2013). There was well built houses with foundation not swept clean but strong and weird surrounding damage had been rated EF5(Rainsville 2011). But it's hard to imagine tornados can been rated EF5 due to the damage of houses with clinder block foundation.

Yup! Rainsville 2011. Didn’t sweep away a single poured concrete foundation with bolts-type house. Was initially rated EF4 because of this. It was upgraded to EF5 months later based on overwhelming contextual evidence.

I don’t know if that would go over well today. Things started getting a little more conservative again ratings wise starting around 2014.

I heard that Rainsville 2011 was only rated 175mph initially. Having such a big upgrade almost two months later was a little weird. What's more weird was NWS Huntsville made a map for Rainsville and showed tons of areas rated EF5 which was impossible at all.

 

[pohnpei]

Are there any examples of homes with cinder-block foundations being given an F/EF5 rating?

There was also a house with unreinforced CMU foundation west of Hackleburg rated EF5 which was considered EF4 by TIm Marshall.

 

[buckeye05]

There was also a house with unreinforced CMU foundation west of Hackleburg rated EF5 which was considered EF4 by TIm Marshall.

View attachment 5454View attachment 5455

If I was a lead damage surveyor, and then Tim freakin’ Marshall used my work as an example of how not to use the EF scale in a presentation, I don’t know how I’d ever recover from that XD

The crazy thing is, I think I know who rated this house EF5, and if it’s who I’m thinking of, he had a tendency get more than a little condescending on weather forums when anyone questioned EF ratings in any way. Oh the irony.

 

[buckeye05]

Another aerial of the Uncatena Avenue damage. Pretty crazy:View attachment 5453

You know as impressive as this is, I’m noticing that these appear to be basement foundation type homes based on the construction visible in the lower right corner. I’m seeing that the bolted-down floor platforms are still covering the basements. What this means is that these homes likely failed at the weak connection between the subflooring and wall studs, meaning it wouldn’t be able to be rated higher than EF4.

With that said, I still think that there were other damage areas along the path that were legitimately EF5, namely the total wipeout of whole streets of well-built homes in the Great Brook Valley neighborhood, leaving row upon row of empty basements.

 

[Marshal79344]

Pasillo de los Tornados - Pasado y presente. - Google My Maps

Este es un pequeño proyecto en marcha que tiene como finalidad tener un registro de todos los tornados que ocurren en la zona comprendida por; Brasil, Paraguay, Uruguay y Argentina. Toda la data que se encuentra aquí es gracias al; SMN (Servicio Meteorológico de Argentina), el INMET (Instituto...

www.google.com

I used to search some of the South Amercia tornados on this website but it didn't update in recent years.
It had some pretty decent looking tornados occasionally

Some tornados in 2017 in South Amercia, the first three pics was from an F3 tornado that year.

When and where was that F3 tornado?

 

[pohnpei]

When and where was that F3 tornado?

It occured on Dec 8 2017 if I read this correctly.

 

[buckeye05]

According to Twitter, the Água Doce, Brazil tornado from earlier this year has finally been rated. It’s been categorized as an EF3

 

[MNTornadoGuy]

I've done more research on the May 8, 1965 tornado outbreak and it seems like it was the most violent tornado outbreak on record in the Northern Plains. The first violent event of the outbreak was the Greeley NE tornado family (likely made up of more than 3 intense tornadoes) which severely debarked groves of trees, rammed 2x4s into steel bins, threw a self-propelled combine 250 yards, mangled farm machinery and vehicles beyond recognition, scoured the ground and completely swept away one farm.

 

[MNTornadoGuy]

The second violent event was the Colome SD F5 which completely swept away three farms, mangled vehicles, and debarked trees.

Tripp County, SD F5 Tornado – May 8, 1965 – Tornado Talk

www.tornadotalk.com

 

[MNTornadoGuy]

The third violent event was the Primerose NE tornado family (likely made of 3 or more intense tornadoes like the first violent event.) This extremely violent tornado family completely swept away homes in Primrose, severely debarked trees, threw cars 200-400 yards, scoured the ground, rolled/carried the body of a truck for 2 miles, tossed loaded rail-cars weighing over 100 tons, and leveled multiple farms.

]

 

[MNTornadoGuy]

The final violent tornado of the outbreak was the Gregory SD F4. This tornado completely leveled one farm which included a concrete barn and two homes. Farm machinery and cars were mangled beyond recognition. It was possible there were other violent tornadoes in this outbreak as an F3 tornado near Johnstown NE destroyed several ranches (some with near-F4 intensity), debarked trees, and carried/rolled cars a half-mile. I believe that the Primrose NE and Greeley NE tornadoes probably reached F5 intensity at some point.

 

[Juliett Bravo Kilo]

The April 26, 1940 Gooding ID F3 tornado was described by Grazulis as "the most intensely damaging tornado west of the Rocky Mountains." Three homes were destroyed on five farms, automobiles were thrown up to 150 yards, telephone poles were snapped near ground level, trees were uprooted or stripped of branches.
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Another intense event west of the Rockies is the 1972 Portland-Vancouver F3 that killed 6 people, did the Gooding tornado kill anybody? I've never heard this event before your post.

 

[MNTornadoGuy]

Another intense event west of the Rockies is the 1972 Portland-Vancouver F3 that killed 6 people, did the Gooding tornado kill anybody? I've never heard this event before your post.

No, it didn't but it did result in some injuries. Also, Grazulis gives the 1972 Portland tornado an F2 rating and I haven't seen any F3 structural damage from that tornado. Another strong Pacific-coast tornado was the 4/21/1967 Madera CA tornado which was given an F2 rating. It tore apart a pre-fabricated home with debris being spread over a quarter-mile, moved a dump truck, and tossed a large water-tank one hundred yards.

 

[MNTornadoGuy]

Speaking of the 1972 Vancouver tornado, here are some damage photos.

 

[MNTornadoGuy]

Does anyone have any ground photographs of these swept away homes from the 2014 Vilonia tornado without damage indicators?

 

[Juliett Bravo Kilo]

Some pics of Hackleburg I've never seen before:


1. Near Mount Hope:


2. South of Hackleburg:



This link has more: https://www.alabamawx.com/?p=56698

 

[warneagle]

I feel like a disproportionate number of the April 27th tornadoes displayed visible horizontal vortices, is there a reason for that?

 

[MNTornadoGuy]

I feel like a disproportionate number of the April 27th tornadoes displayed visible horizontal vortices, is there a reason for that?

High vorticity in the environment.