Significant Tornado Events

[MNTornadoGuy]

You can watch this video and noticed the damage of the Dodge dealership(32:11) along I-20. It was made by Canton EF3. This was an aerial damage video of Canton EF3's path.


And notice the damage at 40:50 and 38:00 of this video, checking this from KML on GE, which further confrim that it was the damage from Canton EF3.

Those slabs at 32:11 appear to be metal outbuildings or some structure like that instead of a home. For the other buildings you pointed to those are homes but they were likely surveyed by the NWS as they have destroyed homes on their Canton tornado page that appears to be very similar to the one shown in the video. The reason they probably didn’t get a higher rating is because they were likely poorly-anchored.

 

[TH2002]

Additional Ivanovo damage pics:

May be one of the heavy containers that was thrown a full kilometer?


Structural and vegetation damage.


May be more of the heavy containers, lots of debris also visible behind them.


Large buildings that were completely leveled in Ivanovo.

 

[MNTornadoGuy]

Additional Ivanovo damage pics:
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May be one of the heavy containers that was thrown a full kilometer?

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Structural and vegetation damge.

View attachment 6241
May be more of the heavy containers, lots of debris also visible behind them.

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Large buildings that were completely leveled in Ivanovo.

That’s probably the water tank that was blown over in the first picture.

 

[pohnpei]

Those slabs at 32:11 appear to be metal outbuildings or some structure like that instead of a home. For the other buildings you pointed to those are homes but they were likely surveyed by the NWS as they have destroyed homes on their Canton tornado page that appears to be very similar to the one shown in the video. The reason they probably didn’t get a higher rating is because they were likely poorly-anchored.

There was no slab at 32:11. It was Dodge dealership that was destroyed along I-20 and was rated EF2 appropriately.


I mean the house damage at 37:18 and 40:50. These were residence before and you check it on Google earth. It wasn't show on the NWS website or KML. Even they were poor anchored, the rating of 145mph was inacceptable.
4



Also damage at 24:49 of the video:

 

[eric11]

I forgot about this one. The Bowdle tornado did not produce any EF4 structural damage, but was rated EF4 mainly based on a metal truss tower that was ripped from its footings, thrown a considerable distance, and completely mangled. It might have even been the one in the photo above. I think the extreme debarking was also taken into consideration for an EF4 rating. A good example of a more "liberaly" rated EF4 that I actually do agree with.

The metal truss tower pohnpei published may not be the one you're referring to.Actually you can find the tower was still attached to its four anchored concrete foot, it's just completely mangled.The metal truss tower you and NWS Aberdeen mentioned may be this one I think, which might not been captured by TWISTEX.It was thrown for 250m, something I've never seen before even in an EF5.It's extremely hard for a tornado to dig out its well-anchored,concrete foot and throw such a distance cuz it's not an object with aerodynamic or regular geometric shape like cars or propane tanks.

It's also weird that there's barely no completely mangled car damage for Bowdle, such a slow-moving, violent motion wedge.

 

[pohnpei]

You can watch this video and noticed the damage of the Dodge dealership(32:11) along I-20. It was made by Canton EF3. This was an aerial damage video of Canton EF3's path.


And notice the damage at 40:50 and 37:18 of this video, checking this from KML on GE, which further confrim that it was the damage from Canton EF3.
Also notice 24:49 of the video, that was the place that some shrubs were completely debarked and cars had been tossed 500 yards away.

Also notice the damage around 20:50. So there were mutiple places that residence were completely damaged. I think there was no reason to automatically judge they were all poorly anchored. These level of damage was not 145mph at all. We know what 145 mph typiclly looks like.

 

[MNTornadoGuy]

View attachment 6257
View attachment 6258View attachment 6259
Damage from the 2010 Bowdle tornado.

 

[eric11]

DFW did missed a lot damage points during Canton's survey, I don't want to conjecture whether they are scrimshanked, or maybe just some place they were hard to reach in woody area.But not only did they miss some completely leveled houses in forests, they seems to have ignored multiple slabs intentionally even though they were located in open fields like pohnpei published upbove and this one below.


I've published tons of Canton's damage pics before though I'm still totally shocked by the contextual damage around this site.

 

[TH2002]

That’s probably the water tank that was blown over in the first picture.

Could be. The water tank was ripped from its supports and tossed 200 meters. Some sources erroneously claim that the crane was also thrown 200 meters though as evidenced by the previous pictures it was ripped from its anchorings and knocked over. The fourth picture probably shows the factory areas that the European Severe Storms Database mentions were destroyed, though I have no information on construction quality.

 

[MNTornadoGuy]

DFW did missed a lot damage points during Canton's survey, I don't want to conjecture whether they are scrimshanked, or maybe just some place they were hard to reach in woody area.But not only did they miss some completely leveled houses in forests, they seems to have ignored multiple slabs intentionally even though they were located in open fields like pohnpei published upbove and this one below.
View attachment 6260
View attachment 6261
I've published tons of Canton's damage pics before though I'm still totally shocked by the contextual damage around this site.
View attachment 6262
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That extreme car damage seems to be from the Canton EF4 as the part of what seems to be the same car shows up on the NWS’s damage page for the EF4. The rest of the photographs seem to be from the EF3 though.

 

[pohnpei]

That extreme car damage seems to be from the Canton EF4 as the part of what seems to be the same car shows up on the NWS’s damage page for the EF4. The rest of the photographs seem to be from the EF3 though.

You can find this car damage in the video at 28:15.It was still, from the EF3 tornado.
Maybe this was the car damage you refer to on NWS website. It was a different car from the one above.

 

[buckeye05]

After looking at all the photo evidence, I have to agree. Both Canton tornadoes should have been rated EF4. Was not aware of how many residences were missed in the survey until now. Not to mention the incredible damage to vegetation and vehicles.

 

[Austin Dawg]

I’d say Smithville by far. The Smithville tornado produced damage that was so intense, that its nearly incomprehensible. Now with that said, the Guin tornado was much more poorly documented, and the clearest damage photos have been lost to time. Some of the photos that armchair tornado damage sleuths have dug up do suggest an extremely violent event occurred in Guin.

Once again I will stress how good it was that this did not happen in a more populated town or area. The area northeast of town is almost completely woods till you cross the state line. I spent a lot of time in that area growing up and it is just hills and trees till you get near Hamilton.

I'm not downplaying this but it passed Amory just to the west (barely) and Hamilton which are more populated and it would have been an even bigger disaster of life and property. I just wish I knew why it couldn't have waited until it was north of town to put down.

 

[MNTornadoGuy]

One forgotten but interesting tornadic event is the 11/9/1982 Los Angeles tornado outbreak. An unusually strong system generated an outbreak of 7 tornadoes in the Los Angeles area making it one of the largest tornado outbreaks in California history. 2 of these tornadoes reached F2 intensity, the most notable of these being the Long Beach F2. Up to 1300 yards wide, this minimal F2 tracked 10 miles through Long Beach unroofing buildings and uprooting 300 trees.

 

[TH2002]

Another West Coast tornado event that has been completely forgotten is the November 22, 1996 tornado outbreak. A potent storm system spawned an impressive eight tornadoes across central California and western Arizona. Fortunately all of the tornadoes were relatively weak rated F0 and F1. The four tornadoes in California were an F1 near Merced, an F0 and F1 that struck Lemoore (the F1 caused damage at Lemoore Naval Station) and an F0 that struck Bakersfield. The four tornadoes that struck Arizona were all in the vicinity of Kingman; an F1 that was a quarter mile wide and remained on the ground for an impressive 20, minutes, an F0 south of State Highway 68, an F0 close to US Highway 93, and an F0 that damaged outbuildings.

Link with pictures of the tornadoes and additional information on the storm system. Also found an alternative to the Tornado History Project!

Tornadic Thunderstorms in the San Joaquin Valley, 11/22/96

https://data.vcstar.com/tornado-archive/

 

[TH2002]

More Ivanovo damage pics:

Photo that definitely showcases the tornado's multiple-vortex structure.


Destroyed brick home, probable F2 or low-end F3 damage considering the home was small and probably not well-anchored


More leveled buildings


Large brick building that incurred probable F3-level damage

 

[MNTornadoGuy]

Both of California's official F3s in the NCDC database were definitely not F3s. The August 1973 Blythe one only unroofed a small home and moved a trailer 40 ft which sounds like an F2 at the most. The Feb 9, 1978, Orange County one might have not even happened as I can't find a reference to it at all in storm data publications.

 

[buckeye05]

Both of California's official F3s in the NCDC database were definitely not F3s. The August 1973 Blythe one only unroofed a small home and moved a trailer 40 ft which sounds like an F2 at the most. The Feb 9, 1978, Orange County one might have not even happened as I can't find a reference to it at all in storm data publications.

Always been fascinated by the 1978 event, and how I can never find any details on it. Something tornadic must have happened that day, but I can’t figure exactly what. In any case, six people were injured and there was apparently 2.5 million dollars in damage.

I do know that there was also significant flash flooding in California that day.

 

[MNTornadoGuy]

Always been fascinated by the 1978 event, and how I can never find any details on it. Something tornadic must have happened that day, but I can’t figure exactly what. In any case, six people were injured and there was apparently 2.5 million dollars in damage.

I do know that there was also significant flash flooding in California that day.

I looked through newspapers and the only tornadic event I found from that day was a weak brief touchdown in the Los Angeles area. 2 days before 2/9 there was a tornado near Sacramento that unroofed a home and completely destroyed a trailer. This tornado also might have caused an injury. It's possible whoever inserted the 2/9 tornado into the database got confused between this tornado or something. Though the 2/7 tornado has its own entry in the NCDC database.

 

[Juliett Bravo Kilo]

I looked through newspapers and the only tornadic event I found from that day was a weak brief touchdown in the Los Angeles area. 2 days before 2/9 there was a tornado near Sacramento that unroofed a home and completely destroyed a trailer. This tornado also might have caused an injury. It's possible whoever inserted the 2/9 tornado into the database got confused between this tornado or something. Though the 2/7 tornado has its own entry in the NCDC database.

I wonder if this event was mislabeled as a downburst in some official publications, perhaps that's why it's hard to find information on it? Not sure. I do know that downbursts are more common in Western states then tornadoes, again just speculating.