Interesting. Is that tree debarked? Can't tell. Overall this damage today would be anywhere from EF3 to low end 4. Hard to say. Notice how the top of the building looks like it may have slid off or something, because it doesn't appear to have been mangled or granulated.
You’re the man, thank you for the answer.
I’m not getting an EF scale debate going in here, more of a F scale historical debate, but it does really make you wonder just how skewed the historical record of tornado intensity really is. With analysis being done from newspaper clippings from damage photos, By college interns & Grazullis. Some of his ratings have really been questionable. I’ve said it before, he’s an amazing historian and archivist, but a bit of a quack and some of his ratings are all over the place.
I've said before but I think most ratings after 1970 seem reasonable. When you look at even controversial ratings like Spiro and Brownwood in 1976, they SEEM legitimate or at least reasonable. Also, what I have done is literally just search for the names of old tornadoes in this thread - e.g. Silverton; Udall; Inverness - and found a wealth of information.
Where on earth did you find these? I've failed to find more damage pictures than the below:
Endlessly scrolling on Twitter lol (using searching)
MEG, SGF: EF-0, take it or leave it
There have been quite a few of those short but powerful tornadoes over the years in the DFW area
This is pretty well summed up by slower moving tornadoes tracking for a shorter distance! They spend the same amount of time on the ground as a long tracked, super fast moving tornado; but simply move slower for that time period!
Actually, looking back at it, the Jarrell F5 (Jarrell was incredibly slow-moving though, so the track length isn't surprising), Valley Mills F5, Clyde F5, Wichita Falls F5 and Lubbock F5 were all under 15 miles. Is there a science behind that? This actually really intrigues me, taking a deeper look.
Clyde also had another deviant track, taking a long semi-horsehoe turn from the northwest towards the town. Loyal Valley, Jarrell, Clyde, and Matador all had what you could call deviant tracks.
Notice how a lotta these tornadoes are from the plains/prairies? Well, within those regions we see zonal, shallower, or more mesoscale based setups; tornadoes/storms from these types of background environments are slower. As we see hodographic profiles favoring deviant motion, boundary riders (think Jarrell or Matador, same for Sterling City!), and weaker shear environments which favor CAPE based setups; this is how your "grinder" tornado is born, slow movement and extreme instability. Almost every single slow moving vio-tor can be traced back to these very principals; Harper, Jarrell, Clyde, Matador, Cisco, Duke, Loyal Valley, Bakersfield Valley, heck even the Lubbock F5; they all were set in environments which appear in these regions. You don't see these slow moving grinders in dixie, the genuine evolution of mid-latitude cyclones is why!
Thanks so much for explaining! I did notice that most of the Alabama (E)F5s were long-tracked, but you already summed that up.
Yeah, the truck stop/service station was at the intersection of US-20 & IN-15 and — don't quote me on this, I'm going from memory — I believe there were six people killed in all. I think another person was killed in a car a little further east that was thrown like a quarter mile. That whole area was devastated. Here's some more shots from the truck stop and surroundings:
Several clean slabs, some wind rowing, and probably some granulation. The building across the road from the truck stop appears to have been very cleanly swept.Yeah, the truck stop/service station was at the intersection of US-20 & IN-15 and — don't quote me on this, I'm going from memory — I believe there were six people killed in all. I think another person was killed in a car a little further east that was thrown like a quarter mile. That whole area was devastated. Here's some more shots from the truck stop and surroundings:
I don’t want to turn this into an EF debate thread, but after seeing these pictures, that is an unbelievably head-scratching decision to rate this an EF2. Honestly, I’m willing to believe that a lot of these slow, meandering Plains grinders are some of the most violent tornadoes, but they normally hardly hit anything to justify higher ratings. Sterling City 2024 was certainly stronger than the low-end EF3 rating it was given, and another prime example would be Matador (don’t want to beat a dead horse there, lol). Did Texas Tech have a say in these ratings? It would make things make a whole lot more sense.
Yeah, the truck stop/service station was at the intersection of US-20 & IN-15 and — don't quote me on this, I'm going from memory — I believe there were six people killed in all. I think another person was killed in a car a little further east that was thrown like a quarter mile. That whole area was devastated. Here's some more shots from the truck stop and surroundings:
Note the (triple tracked!) main line railroad. I believe that was the New York Central but not sure. This is probably one reason why MULTIPLE witnesses distinctly thought the imminent noise was a train.
