Significant Tornado Events

[Juliett Bravo Kilo]

Yeah, the video was from SW of Albion (probably pretty close to where the tornado was at peak intensity, actually) and that's definitely one of the first things I'm going to point them to. Maybe knowing the video will be on TV will be the motivation they need to actually follow through and turn it over. Can't hurt, anyway. There are also aerial survey videos of several tornadoes out there that I couldn't get my hands on, among other things.

Is the Albion vid the one where it was multivortex before narrowing and undergoing a failed occlusion?

 

[locomusic01]

Is the Albion vid the one where it was multivortex before narrowing and undergoing a failed occlusion?

Yeah, it would've been maybe two-ish miles SW of Knapp Rd, where the tornado produced some of its most impressive damage:

The red arrow here is where the Knapp Rd damage occurred and the blue arrow is roughly where the video was shot (not 100% certain about the exact location). The town is Albion, obviously, and the failed occlusion happened right near that bright yellow-orange patch of field:

 

[CheeselandSkies]

I remember hearing (perhaps in your article) that someone had a tower-mounted video camera that they used to see the tornado coming. However, it didn't say if they'd recorded the feed from that camera (this being 1985, they'd likely have had to have a VHS or Betamax deck hooked up to it). Is this that one?

 

[locomusic01]

I remember hearing (perhaps in your article) that someone had a tower-mounted video camera that they used to see the tornado coming. However, it didn't say if they'd recorded the feed from that camera (this being 1985, they'd likely have had to have a VHS or Betamax deck hooked up to it). Is this that one?

Yup, it was a camera on top of some sorta swiveling tower/antenna type thing, and apparently he started recording either just before or just after the tornado became visible.

 

[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.View attachment 27745
Same tornado, this time as it exited the town:View attachment 27746
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.

There was also another F4 on that day in San Saba County that swept away a farm house with 3 deaths and 10 injuries

 

[CheeselandSkies]

Yup, it was a camera on top of some sorta swiveling tower/antenna type thing, and apparently he started recording either just before or just after the tornado became visible.

Great! When I read that, I immediately wanted to see that video.

 

[SpotlightForRareTornadoes]

Celebrating 8 years of Dodge City and Chapman!

 

[Western_KS_Wx]

There are also aerial survey videos of several tornadoes out there that I couldn't get my hands on, among other things.

This part right here, made me want to pull my hair out and go take a walk. I don’t recall what site it was from but there was actually a video taken by a news station where they flew over the Greensburg track beginning-end and continued north, following Trousdale, Hopewell, and Macksville, essentially covering the entire storm track.

Thought I hit a literal gold mine, but the video link was a dead-end, and web archive was no use. Tried contacting the news station but got no response. There was some little preview video that for some reason worked yet the full video didn’t, quality was pretty awful but the best shot I could come away with was this:

Better than nothing I suppose. I was also in contact with Tim Marshall, interestingly he was apart of the QRT team that surveyed Trousdale and Hopewell along with of course Greensburg. Got a few photos from Greensburg he provided but haven’t heard back in a while, I don’t blame him though as this tornado season has been absolutely nuts.

One final thing forgot to add, got more information and photos from Macksville, while it wasn’t as intense as the previous tornadoes the thing was still pretty nasty and likely violent. One thing that really caught my eye was this storm chaser’s site I came across, they got some pretty impressive photos including some that showed impressive tree debarking and a paved road that had sections of the pavement peeled away. Problem is, there’s a huge watermark dead smack in the middle of the photos. I contacted the email provided in the website and haven’t got a response yet, but here’s a little excerpt from the site on damage from Macksville:

 

[locomusic01]

This part right here, made me want to pull my hair out and go take a walk. I don’t recall what site it was from but there was actually a video taken by a news station where they flew over the Greensburg track beginning-end and continued north, following Trousdale, Hopewell, and Macksville, essentially covering the entire storm track.

Thought I hit a literal gold mine, but the video link was a dead-end, and web archive was no use. Tried contacting the news station but got no response. There was some little preview video that for some reason worked yet the full video didn’t, quality was pretty awful but the best shot I could come away with was this:

I feel your pain lol. I don't have much of a temper, but that's the kind of thing that drives me crazy.

 

[Western_KS_Wx]

I feel your pain lol. I don't have much of a temper, but that's the kind of thing that drives me crazy.

Gets a little frustrating at times, I’ve ran into so many dead-ends and sources getting to no where it’s not even funny. I had a local say she had photographs of the Trousdale and Hopewell tornadoes and ‘a whole gallery’ of damage photos, but I got no follow-up from them.

Also, my previous post I noticed the photos and damage descriptions that I initially thought were Macksville actually were from Trousdale. Was going through my damage photos earlier and realized the locations matched up to Trousdale, which is odd since the photographer labeled the photos as being along Highway 50. There are paved roads near Trousdale, being 51st and 270th Avenue and the damaged grain bins in the photos are actually from Skyland Grain, also near Trousdale. Looks like the tornado remained violent up until very near the end of its life, much like Greensburg and Hopewell.

 

[CheeselandSkies]

As someone who works in local TV news; I can perhaps shed some light on why it's sometimes difficult to retrieve archive footage from a station.

Most local TV stations, except in really big markets and those which are actually owned by the network they have a programming affiliation with (NBC, CBS, ABC or FOX), have small staffs and likely don't have anyone whose job description specifically entails handling archive footage requests.

When I started a little over 10 years ago, our more recent archive footage was burned onto DVDs (2008-sometime in 2013) and Blu-Rays (2013 & later) and stored in flimsy paper sleeves on rickety wooden shelves in the newsroom. Content that aired in newscasts (VO/SOTs and packages done by our reporters/photographers) was archived, but raw footage seldom if ever was - there simply wasn't the space to do so. Many of these discs were quickly rendered unreadable via fingerprints and scratches from mishandling by producers. We've since switched to a Sony Optical Disc Archive cartridge system for archiving, which is a better system but has its own drawbacks.

Older footage than 2008 was on bulky full-size Betacam or even older and bulkier 3/4" U-matic cassettes and stashed in probably 4 or 5 random locations around the station - basically wherever there was room. The thoroughness of the notes on what was actually on each tape were only as good as those made by the long-since moved on or retired staff member who put it together. Before we moved buildings and got rid of those tapes; they were dubbed onto external hard drives (which were later dubbed onto the Sony ODA system). However, the sketchy notes and lack of any sort of cross-referencing with our current NRCS (Newsroom Computer System) software means the process to actually find something specific on it is still time-consuming and cumbersome.

Copyright is another thorny issue. Most people at local stations would probably be fine with just giving you the footage - it's the owner/parent company (which probably owns dozens to 100s of stations around the country) which is strict about copyright protections, and someone could get in trouble if they caught wind we had given something away without going through the proper legal channels. A while back we had someone contact our station to ask if there was a longer version of a video of the Stoughton tornado of 2005 that about a 3 second clip of was used in a package that was on our old YouTube channel. I found the video fairly quickly, there wasn't all that much more to it (I think it was one of those MOV or MPEG-1 videos taken with the point-and-shoot digital cameras that were common at the time, just a few years before smartphone cameras really took off), probably 15-20 seconds total. However our news director refused to send it for this reason.

 

[Aaron Rider]

I think it's an engineering pedantry dominated mindset. The whole thing reminds me of that saying that "an expert is a person who avoids the small errors while sweeping on to the grand fallacy". In this case it's literally true, they try to account for every factor that could compromise the 'load path' while arriving at a figure that other evidence indicates is probably drastically wrong.

I don't know what the incentive is as it's one in that scientific community - not just the engineers, but some of the meteorologists as well. Though if you push them they'll admit that winds are probably much higher. For the engineers it allows blame to be shifted to builders at least.

One thing I've noticed that even though it's often tacitly admitted that EF DI determined winds are often not accurate, they are usually treated as such for the purposes of engineering and climatology. If it was admitted that higher speeds occur this would indicate the risk is higher than EF-speed based assessments would say. On the other hand, if someone obtained evidence of significantly higher winds for a given degree of damage, this could indicate that houses are more resistant than thought, which would be a good thing.

But overall it's a hard question to answer - you can't ask the people involved because they don't believe they are underrating tornadoes. That's why I think it's a mindset problem that will take some fresh minds or really decisive evidence to shift.

"Yes, a genuine expert can always foretell a thing that is five hundred years away easier than he can a thing that's only five hundred seconds off."

- Mark Twain

 

[HAwkmoon]

Can someone help me identify these photos? I can't remember which tornado they are from?

 

[TH2002]

Can someone help me identify these photos? I can't remember which tornado they are from?

View attachment 28259
View attachment 28260
View attachment 28261

First two are from Moore 2013, third is from Moore 1999

 

[HAwkmoon]

First two are from Moore 2013, third is from Moore 1999

Thanks. I am surprised the third is from Moore 1999.

 

[SpotlightForRareTornadoes]

If you see this in a tornado, run. JUST RUN.



It is the only way to survive. 27 years ago, a photographer by the name of Scott Beckwith spotted a tornado outside of Jarrel, Texas. He rushed back into the local Farm Supply to grab his camera. Little did he know, that he would document a HORRIFYING encounter. In the first three photos, the twister was an innocent rope tornado, dancing in the fields without a care in the world. The next three were very disturbing. And then, THIS happened. When the happening was over, 27 people died a gruesome, video demonetizing death. Those that did were people who were nowhere NEAR the tornado. The 1997 Jarrel tornado taught us that sometimes, the worst decisions are the ones that save your life. This is the worst F5 tornado...IN HISTORY.

 

[Jellyroll]

I think it's an engineering pedantry dominated mindset. The whole thing reminds me of that saying that "an expert is a person who avoids the small errors while sweeping on to the grand fallacy". In this case it's literally true, they try to account for every factor that could compromise the 'load path' while arriving at a figure that other evidence indicates is probably drastically wrong.

I don't know what the incentive is as it's one in that scientific community - not just the engineers, but some of the meteorologists as well. Though if you push them they'll admit that winds are probably much higher. For the engineers it allows blame to be shifted to builders at least.

One thing I've noticed that even though it's often tacitly admitted that EF DI determined winds are often not accurate, they are usually treated as such for the purposes of engineering and climatology. If it was admitted that higher speeds occur this would indicate the risk is higher than EF-speed based assessments would say. On the other hand, if someone obtained evidence of significantly higher winds for a given degree of damage, this could indicate that houses are more resistant than thought, which would be a good thing.

But overall it's a hard question to answer - you can't ask the people involved because they don't believe they are underrating tornadoes. That's why I think it's a mindset problem that will take some fresh minds or really decisive evidence to shift.

As someone who works professionally in both the engineering and scientific communities, I find this slightly offensive for obvious reasons, but I understand the sentiment and wholly love this quote "an expert is a person who avoids the small errors while sweeping on to the grand fallacy". What I will say in response, is that scientist, engineers and meteorologists apply prescribed methods to a problem with the goal of determining a definitive answerer. If they are not approaching a problem in this way, then they are acting neither as a scientist nor engineer.

I know we look like a bunch of idiots running around, pointing fingers whenever let's say a bridge collapses and the media is always excellent at finding an "expert" who will espouse their opinions with zero liability nor ownership for the statements made. So, how can a science, being civil engineering in this case, that's been around for centuries, totally miss the mark with catastrophic results? or how can a survey team come up with a rating that in re-review was obviously grossly underrated?

As an aside, I am not even going to touch on building codes because those are whole other issue to themselves that many times have much more to do with politics as opposed to science or engineering.

Science is a beautiful thing because we are constantly discovering new things but therein lies the problem, in that by making that statement, I have conversely said that previously, we did not have as clear of a picture or may have even had things wrong. It can be easy to pass judgement, even if those people previously applied the correct method but unknowingly came to an erroneous conclusion. Modern meteorology is a very new science when compared to others, so aspects of it may have been incorrect but like other sciences has constantly evolved and will continue to. The 1925 Tri-state tornado is an excellent example. The analysis performed and conclusions arrived at in 1925, 66, 92 and finally in 2013 are substantially different but each of these analyses held up to peer review based on the current scientific understanding at that time.

The rating system is an evidence-based system, which at this point in time is the best we have. There may be a time in the near future where the technology will advance to the point that we can record the instantaneous wind speed of any tornado and have a full picture of its genesis and decay. The method being used to interpret that evidence has constantly evolved since it's introduction and has well known limitations and blind spots. A Guide to F-Scale Damage Assessment, Doswell 2003 is a good breakdown of these limits and problems with the methods used as well as pitfalls a surveyor might encounter. Meteorology, as a science, is many times not able to provide fully definitive answers and still requires subjective input for a qualified answer. Without knowing the actually wind speed, there will always be a tendency to err on the side of being conservative with a subjective conclusion because without strong evidence to the contrary, the conclusion will not hold up to scrutiny. As methods and guidance on how to apply those methods evolves, the accuracy and precision has and will continue to improve.

I doubt I am going to change anyone's mind and I may be blatantly exposing the aforementioned mind-set myself, but I truly do not believe that on the whole, poor survey results have anything to do with nefarious or predisposed mindsets. Whether it be a survey or forecast, sometimes well-meaning professionals just get things wrong, not out of ignorance or being unthorough but because the methods used were flawed or improperly applied.

 

[Sawmaster]

Meteorology, as a science, is many times not able to provide fully definitive answers and still requires subjective input for a qualified answer. Without knowing the actually wind speed, there will always be a tendency to err on the side of being conservative with a subjective conclusion because without strong evidence to the contrary, the conclusion will not hold up to scrutiny.

I'll only address this part. The scientific side, Meteorology, of surveying seems to do well dealing with subjectivity while the Engineering side doesn't. Science looks for what might be and quantifies it. Engineering operates within known parameters and discounts what may be otherwise. Ideally the two would combine into giving the best of both worlds, but since almost all of the surveying had been handed over to Engineers we're getting too conservative results because some or most of the evidence is contextual which cannot be exactly quantified. It's a mindset and management problem. Rather than bombard you with examples I'll mention one which illustrates my belief and perspective nearly perfectly.

A well built properly bolted house was swept away cleanly, which indicated an EF-5 level of damage. There was no evidence of any impacts to the house. But it was given an EF-4 because a nearby tree hadn't been broken or heavily debarked and the surrounding houses were all EF-4 level damage or less. A similar case failed because shrubbery by the house hadn't been denuded.

Instead of looking for the truth whatever it might be, this illustrates an approach where no thought was given to how the tree or shrubbery might have done well while the structure didn't;m the focus was on looking for something to justify a lower rating instead. Perhaps a parked car had protected these items until the last moment when it blew away, thus limiting damage- a plausible scenario- but anything like that was ignored because the engineer had found what he was looking for to justify his position. It's a mindset prevalent in engineering so as to avoid embarrassment when your work is reviewed as it will be. If the surveyor had replaced the mindset with a more objective one he might have said "even though" instead of "because of" regarding the contextual indicators but that approach is foreign to the profession because your belief can't be solidly defended. You can't find the truth when you exclude the possible because it may not be probable.

Engineers do have a place here, but they are not going to see the big picture clearly because they are only looking at and for details used to rate damage at specific points. If the profession will learn to allow for unquantifiable things to be used as general indicators instead of dismissing them or using them only to justify one's findings I think we'll get closer to the truth, and that should be the only goal here. If the profession will not change then it needs to be out of this part of the picture.

In residential surveying, almost anyone can learn what the DI's are and how to assess the DOD each one indicates. Even an average High School grad can do this, and if they come across a question, then is when engineering can step in and shine. In commercial and industrial structures where construction methods are less evident and things like the quality of a weld matters is where engineering can shine too. The best results usually happen where you put people to the task they're best suited for while not assigning tasks to those less suitable for them. IMHO currently engineers are constraining and limiting the search for the truth because of their inherent mindset, and we;d do well to limit their input to only where it's needed.

Nothing personal here and this is not meant to bash; I have engineers in my family who I think the world of along with a nephew who just graduated HS with a full engineering scholarship granted to him at a well-known and well-respected university. It's just something I believe lies at the core of the debate and I wish would be addressed.

 

[HAwkmoon]

Anyone able to identify these images from tristate where they are?

 

[locomusic01]

Anyone able to identify these images from tristate where they are?
View attachment 28272
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View attachment 28275

View attachment 28276
View attachment 28277

The first is the Chicago & Eastern Illinois Railroad in Griffin, second is De Soto (De Soto School is visible in the background), third is Murphysboro, fifth appears to be the mine at West Frankfort. I don't recognize the fourth one off-hand, but at a guess it looks like it could maybe be this neighborhood in Murphysboro?