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Significant Tornado Events
- Thread starter locomusic01
- Start date
Juliett Bravo Kilo
Member
Holy crap, damage pics from this thing are finally available! The way it disintegrated vehicles and scattered the remains for miles reminds me of Camp Crook, SD with what it did to that tractor. Also, this thing is easily in the top 5 of most photogenic tornadoes of all time.
Western_KS_Wx
Member
That’s easily the most extreme vehicle damage I’ve ever seen from a tornado by a long shot, good lord. This thing also tracked in basically the middle of no where in very rural areas, meaning debris had little effect and that was just the raw power of the tornado shredding those vehicles like that. Can’t imagine what it would’ve done had it tracked through a populated city.
Juliett Bravo Kilo
Member
Camp Crook did something similar to a tractor, and it tracked through desolate rural areas with hardly any debris either.
If something like this tracked through a populated city it would likely only have time to throw vehicles against buildings, remote rural areas with little structures tend to allow for the incredible phenomena like this.
Shakespeare 2016
Member
I thought the tornado may have thrown the tractor from the farm in Camp Crook, SD BACKWARDS into Montana.
Juliett Bravo Kilo
Member
Either way, crazy.
Shakespeare 2016
Member
Tje Chapman 2016 tornado tore some vehicles and farm equipment to shreds and as you probably remember was how the railroad tracks were ripped up and the bar bent.
Juliett Bravo Kilo
Member
Not like this though.
Come to think Jarrell still holds the most violent vehicle damage contender, as it literally disintegrated vehicles into grain-sized pieces and ground up the remains with mud and dirt. Even Stratton didn't do that.
Shakespeare 2016
Member
There aren't very many things from other exceptionally violent tornadoes that can top the Jarrell 1997 tornado damage.
SpotlightForRareTornadoes
Member
If that happened, then Camp Crook would've been the strongest tornado in MT.
What do you mean “if” it happened? It’s well documented that it definitely did.
Juliett Bravo Kilo
Member
I think he's getting at if it tracked through a highly populated area, it would likely have done even more crazy feats of damage.
SilentShadow87
Member
The Trenton/Stratton and Bakersfield, TX tornadoes were definitely stronger than any of the official F5 tornadoes that year. Honestly, I would have rated Hesston and Goessel as F4.
I don't have any doubt that Camp Crook was EF5 strength, and possibly one of the strongest tornadoes ever recorded. And I don't see any reason why damage to vehicles and vegetation shouldn't be official DIs.
Juliett Bravo Kilo
Member
Bakersfield was no doubt a high-end F5, it likely would've received that rating had it tracked through a major populated area.
Regarding Hesston and Goessel, a user on here was indeed able to dig up proof that both of these tornadoes slabbed anchor-bolted homes and produced some pretty intense contextual damage. With that said, I do agree that Stratton and Bakersfield Valley were even more violent than those two.
Any photos of that? That sounds interesting.
- Thread starter
- #10,498
locomusic01
Member
The Hesston Public Library has a huge photo collection: https://hesston.digitalsckls.info/collections/show/1
I've also got a bunch of stuff from Hesston-Goessel that I was saving for a potential future article, but I dunno if I'll ever get to it. Maybe I'll post some later. Neither tornado was particularly crazy by F5 standards, but the ratings are definitely warranted.
Thanks, I am diligently awaiting your New Richmond article! I was wondering also, have you read this book by James T. Carrier on the Tri-state tornado as it struck Peabody Mine #18 which according to the damage report was constructed out of steel and reinforced concrete structures and was levelled. I think this is the most compelling instance of EF-5 damage produced by the storm. I have a few low res images of the area and was wondering if you had more?
On another note, have you come across any images of the '300 feet of railroad track torn out' near the railroad house in West Frankfort or the railroad trestle blown from it's piers? Lastly I attempted to enhance some of your article images to varying degrees of success. Was wondering if you had attempted to do something similar.
- Thread starter
- #10,500
locomusic01
Member
Btw, one small update on New Richmond. From the beginning, I was confident the final tornado in the family (which struck Barron and Cameron) was indeed a legit tornado that had just never been officially documented. It did fairly significant damage in a well-defined path, produced an audible roar and killed a woman in Barron, after all. But now I've finally found the last bit of proof that I wanted in the form of an eyewitness account. It's very brief and doesn't include much detail, but still.
A train was pulling into Barron just as the tornado hit and a brakeman atop one of the cars recounted seeing a "funnel-shaped cloud" with debris all around it. I'd consider that pretty definitive. Incidentally, that train was then blown off the tracks and into a large drainage ditch by the tornado; the brakeman himself was carried 200 yards (maybe more depending on exact locations) before landing in a nearby lumber yard. He suffered major injuries (couldn't find specifics unfortunately) but obviously survived to tell his tale.
The lumber yard and adjacent stave and heading mills were totally destroyed and scattered many hundreds of yards downstream. They were empty at the time, but if the tornado had struck about two hours earlier, there would've been probably 50-100 workers between the three facilities. I'd imagine there would've been a lot more than one fatality in that case. Same deal in Cameron, where the post office, creamery and train station (maybe? reports conflict) were destroyed only a couple hours after closing.
The width is mostly guesswork outside of the towns themselves and the start + end points may not be exact (it's possible this was continuous with the previous Clear Lake-Arland tornado, though it seems not), but here's the final-ish path for anyone who's interested:
A train was pulling into Barron just as the tornado hit and a brakeman atop one of the cars recounted seeing a "funnel-shaped cloud" with debris all around it. I'd consider that pretty definitive. Incidentally, that train was then blown off the tracks and into a large drainage ditch by the tornado; the brakeman himself was carried 200 yards (maybe more depending on exact locations) before landing in a nearby lumber yard. He suffered major injuries (couldn't find specifics unfortunately) but obviously survived to tell his tale.
The lumber yard and adjacent stave and heading mills were totally destroyed and scattered many hundreds of yards downstream. They were empty at the time, but if the tornado had struck about two hours earlier, there would've been probably 50-100 workers between the three facilities. I'd imagine there would've been a lot more than one fatality in that case. Same deal in Cameron, where the post office, creamery and train station (maybe? reports conflict) were destroyed only a couple hours after closing.
The width is mostly guesswork outside of the towns themselves and the start + end points may not be exact (it's possible this was continuous with the previous Clear Lake-Arland tornado, though it seems not), but here's the final-ish path for anyone who's interested:
