Significant Tornado Events

[TH2002]

https://weathercurrents.com/morenovalley/PhotoDisplay.do?Id=1&Story=perris/22May2008Tornado



16 years ago today, multiple tornadoes touched down in the SoCal desert. One of which was a strong EF2 tornado that touched down in Moreno Valley, CA. The twisters flipped over semi-trucks and boxcars with winds of up to 120 mph. Several videos of the tornadoes were taken at multiple angles (these are a couple of them). Their quality ranges from absolute potato to sort of decent and OK.

Obviously biased since I live in SoCal, but this event has always fascinated me. I believe it was Tim Marshall who surveyed the tornado and ultimately gave it its 120MPH EF2 rating, based on the semi and railcars. The semi driver was badly injured from what I remember, firefighters had to extract him from the cab w/ the 'jaws of life' and the freeway was shut down for hours. Thankfully he survived the ordeal.

 

[jiharris0220]

El Reno/Piedmont from 5/24/2011. Got up well past 40k feet.

Didn’t debris from that tornado reach 60k feet?

 

[SpotlightForRareTornadoes]

Obviously biased since I live in SoCal, but this event has always fascinated me. I believe it was Tim Marshall who surveyed the tornado and ultimately gave it its 120MPH EF2 rating, based on the semi and railcars. The semi driver was badly injured from what I remember, firefighters had to extract him from the cab w/ the 'jaws of life' and the freeway was shut down for hours. Thankfully he survived the ordeal.

I live in North Central and have been pretty fascinated with the severe weather in the western United States as well as the rest of the world because the less rare they are, the more interesting they can be! For example, on July 21st, 1987, an F4 tornado touched down in YELLOWSTONE of all places. It crossed the Continental Divide at roughly 10,000 ft in elevation and is the most violent high-altitude tornado in the U.S. It also briefly held the record for the most westerly violent tornado for 10 days until the 1987 Black Friday twister in Canada touched down near Edmonton, Alberta, holding the record for 36 YEARS before the 2023 Didsbury EF4 beat the record by a shell. Almost 20 years ago in July 2004, a twister touched down in Sequoia National Park, CA, setting the record for the highest altitude tornado in the U.S., beating the Teton Wilderness F4 Tornado by 2,000 ft! Events like these always keep me interested in waiting for more. While people like Reed Timmer are getting insane vids from Tornado Alley, I may hang back here to keep tabs on the Western U.S. My Profile pic is a photo of the 2018 Meteor Crater, AZ tornado that occurred in October. Colorado may be photogenic, but it has NOTHING on this landspout.

 

[locomusic01]

WHAS11 in Louisville uploaded a little over an hour of coverage from April 3 & 4, 1974 - it obviously focuses mostly on the Louisville tornado, but there are also segments on Brandenburg, Depauw, etc. Not great quality but still pretty interesting.

 

[A Guy]

I've seen this photo labeled as the 5/14/13 Seward, NE F4 before but I have no idea if that's accurate.

I'm now pretty certain that it's a version of this photograph from the July 1919 Monthly Weather Review reproduced at a different quality level, flipped, cropped and possibly retouched, or alternatively one of two photographs taken at nearly the same time.



If I flip the page above and do a rough crop to the size of the original photograph I posted you can see they're very similar - and I think it's too similar to be a coincidence considering the paucity of tornado photos in the era, let alone a somewhat tilty one posed in front of a windmill.



Trouble is that caption is all there is in the MWR, it doesn't even give a year unlike some of the other tornado photographs with the same article. There apparently wasn't a significant tornado near Solomon in the 1910s or 00s though.

 

[locomusic01]

I'm now pretty certain that it's a version of this photograph from the July 1919 Monthly Weather Review reproduced at a different quality level, flipped, cropped and possibly retouched, or alternatively one of two photographs taken at nearly the same time.

View attachment 27656

If I flip the page above and do a rough crop to the size of the original photograph I posted you can see they're very similar - and I think it's too similar to be a coincidence considering the paucity of tornado photos in the era, let alone a somewhat tilty one posed in front of a windmill.

View attachment 27658 View attachment 27659

Trouble is that caption is all there is in the MWR, it doesn't even give a year unlike some of the other tornado photographs with the same article. There apparently wasn't a significant tornado near Solomon in the 1910s or 00s though.

Nice find! Sure does look like a match. Regarding there being no tornadoes near Solomon, one thing I've noticed (as I'm sure you have, too) is that old-timey sources are often.. less than precise when it comes to naming locations. In this specific case, Solomon might just be shorthand for the Solomon River Valley, which is a much larger area that was visited by several notable tornadoes in that period (most notably in 1903 and 1905). 'Course, it could also be a tornado that was never officially documented, which is the easier (and more frustrating) answer. Wouldn't hurt to comb through some old newspapers from the era.

 

[buckeye05]

Hey locomusic01, I recall when you were doing research for your 5/31/1985 article, your pretty much ended the misconception that the Niles-Wheatland F5 didn’t produce scouring and debarking. I remember in particular you found a photo from Niles, I believe, that showed a narrow swath of intense grass scouring in a residential area. It was a color photo taken from the ground, but I think it had text or a watermark on it, and you didn’t use it for your article. Do you still have that photo, or any others that show extreme vegetation damage from the Niles-Wheatland tornado?

 

[slenker]

Hey locomusic01, I recall when you were doing research for your 5/31/1985 article, your pretty much ended the misconception that the Niles-Wheatland F5 didn’t produce scouring and debarking. I remember in particular you found a photo from Niles, I believe, that showed a narrow swath of intense grass scouring in a residential area. It was a color photo taken from the ground, but I think it had text or a watermark on it, and you didn’t use it for your article. Do you still have that photo, or any others that show extreme vegetation damage from the Niles-Wheatland tornado?

I would be very interested to see this - if that’s the case, Greenfield probably comfortably sits at a 185 MPH EF4 imo.

 

[Ivanthetornadoenthusiast]

On this day in 1907, a F4 tornado took an erratic path to the north from west Myrtle Springs to the east side of Wills Point. The tornado struck 35 homes with at least 3 of them being swept away, the tornado killed three and injuring 12. The tornado was photographed by George Alford as it was approaching Wills Point.
Same tornado, this time as it exited the town:
This tornado was part of an outbreak of at least five tornadoes in Texas starting from May 24th to May 25th. The deadliest tornado of the outbreak was the F3 (estimated) tornado that struck the west edge of Emory where it destroyed around 50 homes and flattened large tracts of timber, the Emory tornado killed 6 and injured 45.

 

[locomusic01]

Hey locomusic01, I recall when you were doing research for your 5/31/1985 article, your pretty much ended the misconception that the Niles-Wheatland F5 didn’t produce scouring and debarking. I remember in particular you found a photo from Niles, I believe, that showed a narrow swath of intense grass scouring in a residential area. It was a color photo taken from the ground, but I think it had text or a watermark on it, and you didn’t use it for your article. Do you still have that photo, or any others that show extreme vegetation damage from the Niles-Wheatland tornado?

There isn't a ton of clear, unambiguous evidence available that shows significant scouring unfortunately, although numerous reports + eyewitnesses confirm that it happened. I think this is probably the photo you're talking about, which was taken within the Streak of Doom™ in Shadow Ridge:

Fairly pronounced scouring also occurred on the east side of Stillwagon Rd., although it looks a bit subdued in photos:

Same area but zoomed + looking WNW (the swath of scouring starts near bottom right):

Some scouring also occurred in Wheatland, but I don't think any of my ground-level photos show it very well. You can sorta see it in some of the aerial shots, particularly near the Sawhill plant (the huge warehouse-looking building):

In Wheatland, one of the reasons you can't really see much scouring in ground-level pictures is because of the sheer amount of debris covering the scoured area. Like, this was taken just south of the tracks looking toward Sawhill, and besides the railbed you can't even see the ground, much less identify any scouring.

Ditto w/these:

Kinda the same problem with the aerial videos, except the quality's poor enough that you wouldn't be able to make out much detail anyway:



This is probably the best ground-level shot I could find of possible scouring, but it's still kinda questionable, and it was also taken a little outside of the "main" scoured area.

 

[buckeye05]

There isn't a ton of clear, unambiguous evidence available that shows significant scouring unfortunately, although numerous reports + eyewitnesses confirm that it happened. I think this is probably the photo you're talking about, which was taken within the Streak of Doom™ in Shadow Ridge:

Fairly pronounced scouring also occurred on the east side of Stillwagon Rd., although it looks a bit subdued in photos:

Same area but zoomed + looking WNW (the swath of scouring starts near bottom right):

Some scouring also occurred in Wheatland, but I don't think any of my ground-level photos show it very well. You can sorta see it in some of the aerial shots, particularly near the Sawhill plant (the huge warehouse-looking building):

In Wheatland, one of the reasons you can't really see much scouring in ground-level pictures is because of the sheer amount of debris covering the scoured area. Like, this was taken just south of the tracks looking toward Sawhill, and besides the railbed you can't even see the ground, much less identify any scouring.

Ditto w/these:

Kinda the same problem with the aerial videos, except the quality's poor enough that you wouldn't be able to make out much detail anyway:



This is probably the best ground-level shot I could find of possible scouring, but it's still kinda questionable, and it was also taken a little outside of the "main" scoured area.

Thank you so much! The first photo is the one I was thinking of. Incredible stuff!

 

[locomusic01]

Thank you so much! The first photo is the one I was thinking of. Incredible stuff!

Found a few others I forgot about. There was some ground scouring around Deer Path Village (like ~2mi east of Wheatland), which seems to be visible here although the quality sucks:

Going from memory so don't quote me on this, but I think this was one of the homes destroyed in that development:

Also some minor scouring around Lordstown near where the first fatality occurred:

Pretty significant tree damage in that area as well, although the only photo I have from ground level is a newspaper clipping:

You can also see some random debarking & denuding in other photos, but nothing extreme (first two are from Wheatland, third is from near Greenfield):

 

[buckeye05]

Found a few others I forgot about. There was some ground scouring around Deer Path Village (like ~2mi east of Wheatland), which seems to be visible here although the quality sucks:

Going from memory so don't quote me on this, but I think this was one of the homes destroyed in that development:

Also some minor scouring around Lordstown near where the first fatality occurred:

Pretty significant tree damage in that area as well, although the only photo I have from ground level is a newspaper clipping:

You can also see some random debarking & denuding in other photos, but nothing extreme (first two are from Wheatland, third is from near Greenfield):

The Lordstown area contextual damage is quite impressive. I also recall seeing a few pics from the Newton Falls area that appear to show some partial debarking too.

 

[locomusic01]

By the way, since we're briefly on the topic of 5/31/85, I've recently heard from a few local media outlets who are planning projects for the 40th anniversary next year. Obviously super early in the process, but I'm hopeful I can get them to use their resources to come up with photos + videos I wasn't able to get myself. Ironically, one of them is a TV station I contacted back when I was researching my article and they flat-out refused to give me anything they had archived from the event. Go figure lol

 

[Juliett Bravo Kilo]

There isn't a ton of clear, unambiguous evidence available that shows significant scouring unfortunately, although numerous reports + eyewitnesses confirm that it happened. I think this is probably the photo you're talking about, which was taken within the Streak of Doom™ in Shadow Ridge:

Fairly pronounced scouring also occurred on the east side of Stillwagon Rd., although it looks a bit subdued in photos:

Same area but zoomed + looking WNW (the swath of scouring starts near bottom right):

Some scouring also occurred in Wheatland, but I don't think any of my ground-level photos show it very well. You can sorta see it in some of the aerial shots, particularly near the Sawhill plant (the huge warehouse-looking building):

In Wheatland, one of the reasons you can't really see much scouring in ground-level pictures is because of the sheer amount of debris covering the scoured area. Like, this was taken just south of the tracks looking toward Sawhill, and besides the railbed you can't even see the ground, much less identify any scouring.

Ditto w/these:

Kinda the same problem with the aerial videos, except the quality's poor enough that you wouldn't be able to make out much detail anyway:



This is probably the best ground-level shot I could find of possible scouring, but it's still kinda questionable, and it was also taken a little outside of the "main" scoured area.

The other issue here is that a narrow core in a fast-moving tornado doesn't leave much room for much ground scouring.
Guin has a similar issue, it's F5 core was less than 100 yards while going through the town so it's easy to miss it if you don't know where to look, especially from the ground. Also, the sheer amount of debris covering the ground in Guin inhibits easy viewing of scouring.

 

[buckeye05]

By the way, since we're briefly on the topic of 5/31/85, I've recently heard from a few local media outlets who are planning projects for the 40th anniversary next year. Obviously super early in the process, but I'm hopeful I can get them to use their resources to come up with photos + videos I wasn't able to get myself. Ironically, one of them is a TV station I contacted back when I was researching my article and they flat-out refused to give me anything they had archived from the event. Go figure lol

I remember there were supposedly photos of the Moshannon tornado, and even a video of the Atlantic or Albion tornado that you had heard about, but were unable to actually get ahold of. It’d be incredible if something like that turned up. Probably unlikely, but one can hope.

 

[buckeye05]

The other issue here is that a narrow core in a fast-moving tornado doesn't leave much room for much ground scouring.
Guin has a similar issue, it's F5 core was less than 100 yards while going through the town so it's easy to miss it if you don't know where to look, especially from the ground. Also, the sheer amount of debris covering the ground in Guin inhibits easy viewing of scouring.

The best ground scouring pic from Guin (the one with the flipped car) is quite similar to the first one from Niles above. Both scoured the ground down to bare soil in just seconds, which is incredible. Smithville did the same.

 

[locomusic01]

The Lordstown area contextual damage is quite impressive. I also recall seeing a few pics from the Newton Falls area that appear to show some partial debarking too.

Oh yeah, I'm having trouble finding the ground view right now but in this aerial (just east of the Mahoning River in Newton Falls) you can see a tree in the top left corner that's still standing but totally stripped. Just below it, there's an uprooted tree next to the white car that's partially debarked in the ground shot. IIRC a couple of smaller trees and bushes in the background of that photo are also debarked and denuded to varying degrees.

 

[Juliett Bravo Kilo]

The best ground scouring pic from Guin (the one with the flipped car) is quite similar to the first one from Niles above. Both scoured the ground down to bare soil in just seconds, which is incredible. Smithville did the same.

Couple of pics from Guin with the flipped car where the ground scouring is visible, also several pics from old newspapers I colorized and the scouring is really visible, also confined to a extremely narrow contour.

Also, one of these pics isn't of scouring but a twisted metal object with wheels lying in the pile of debris. Not sure if a mobile home frame or chassis of a vehicle, it's in the pic with the red pickup truck in the background.

 

[Juliett Bravo Kilo]

Moe scouring pics. The one with the methodist church on the right you can see scouring on the lawn if look closely.







This aerial here is the smoking gun. In the upper left you can what looks like a huge swath of scouring in the center left of the pic; the tire tracks over it clue you in to the scouring, as that's a common side with ground stripped by F5 winds.