Looks to me like two tornadoes. The end of the top path looks to be displaced from the beginning of the bottom path to me. Also, the path widths are very different. By itself that isn’t really a good indicator of whether it was actually one path or not, but combined with the former interpretation I think it’s reasonable.
Oh thought I might share some of the ones I collected of Peabody Mine 18 and put in the article along with about 1,500 other photos haha. These come from JCHS and Frankfort Area Genealogical Soceity + Silkwood Inn Museum and Illinois State Archives. Part 1. I will say the damage to this mine is nothing short of extreme, steel reinforced fireproof brick and concrete buildings razed, the multi-hundred ton tipple tower torn down and pulled from the ground by its concrete anchoring piers, and general carnage. Five at the mine site were killed and even the air currents in the mine shaft were reversed by the suction and blew off the reinforced steel door to the office at the bottom of the 518 foot deep mine. ( had to downscale these, full size ones are on the article).I think there might be one or two in my unsorted photos I need to go through eventually, but here's what I've got of Peabody #18:
This obviously isn't the mine itself, but it's a home that was demolished just to the northeast:
Notable how many Tri State photos included people posing. They were very aware of the incredible display of nature
Smithville, at about 17 miles by Tornado Talk's path, the grey line on the right is the Mississippi state boundary.
TornadoTalk has Smithville as a continuous track, so I’m assuming there was enough evidence to come to that conclusion. I agree with it being continuous, looks like a very rapid and potent failed occlusion resulting in a much narrower and weaker vortex being what happened here. That’s fascinating how fast the vortex broke-down though, pretty much like the failed occlusion Moore ‘13 underwent just a more dramatic example.
I don’t think Grinnell was even close to an EF5 candidate, but I think it probably should have been looked at closer for EF4. Marion was a slam dunk viotor, but maybe the wind estimate should have been 180 or so. Agree on the other three. I’d like to raise Morganfield, Lake City and Selmer as other potential viotors.
100% agreed. Based on the damage seen in Bremen, Mayfield was a classic example of what true EF5 contextual damage looks like, but not being rated such due to the construction present in the area.
