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Significant Tornado Events

WeathermanLeprechaun said:
3/14/25 imo is the outbreak of the 2020s. It could be beaten unfortunately in the next few years we have of the decade but to see such a powerhouse of a jet directly nose into the warm sector, with orthogonal 80+ kt 300 mb flow, and extreme low level windfields + many discrete supercells too. And, had we no shear-parallel line on the 15th, many discrete supercells would've done the same things for hours on end instead of the 2-3 hours we got that day. Extraordinary.

We always manage to have a failure mode to dampen things a bit with most events, and even despite how wild this decade has been (4/12/20, 12/10/21, 3/31/23, 4/26 + 5/6 AND 5/25/24) we've had a lot of high ceiling misses. Remember 5/6/24. We didn't get off entirely but that was a day we dodged missiles on truly. We dodged 3/15. Unfortunately, one day, those dodges will run out in a particular area, whether the Plains or it's Dixie. You should know what I mean by that. Hopefully, when the worst case scenario truly comes to fruition, we will be prepared more than the previous times
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I completely agree. 12/10/21 and 3/14/25 are the two craziest outbreaks of the decade in my opinion.
 
SouthFLwx said:
For me it's 12/10/21 simply due to the Western Kentucky tornado.
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Yes agreed. I think 12/10 stands almost in a separate league for tornado outbreaks in the 2020s. While the event didn't feature some of the absurdly high tornado counts like 3/31/23, 4/12/20, 12/15/21 etc the intensity of tornadoes was pretty ridiculous.

Of those tornadoes, you have 3 with 80+ mile tracks and two with 120+ mile tracks! How many other recent outbreaks boast similar?

Intensity wise, you have the two official EF4s which both produced high end damage. One of which, you can arguably say was the strongest of the decade and a prime EF5 candidate.

Then, you can make the case that at least 1-2, but some would say as many as 4 separate tornadoes have cases for violent ratings (Saloma KY, Defiance MO, Dresden TN and Bowling Green KY). I don't think all of these are slam-dunks, but enough a debate is to be had, and enough that I don't think people would be coomplaining if they had got EF4. They would have been rated F4 in the Fujita era, let's say.

So that's an event with (unofficially) 3-6 violent tornadoes, multiple of which were extremely long tracked. To be fair, 3/14 definitely comes close. That outbreak was completely absurd. It's crazy a similar area has seen such high magnitude outbreaks in a short time.
 
UK_EF4 said:
Yes agreed. I think 12/10 stands almost in a separate league for tornado outbreaks in the 2020s. While the event didn't feature some of the absurdly high tornado counts like 3/31/23, 4/12/20, 12/15/21 etc the intensity of tornadoes was pretty ridiculous.

Of those tornadoes, you have 3 with 80+ mile tracks and two with 120+ mile tracks! How many other recent outbreaks boast similar?

Intensity wise, you have the two official EF4s which both produced high end damage. One of which, you can arguably say was the strongest of the decade and a prime EF5 candidate.

Then, you can make the case that at least 1-2, but some would say as many as 4 separate tornadoes have cases for violent ratings (Saloma KY, Defiance MO, Dresden TN and Bowling Green KY). I don't think all of these are slam-dunks, but enough a debate is to be had, and enough that I don't think people would be coomplaining if they had got EF4. They would have been rated F4 in the Fujita era, let's say.

So that's an event with (unofficially) 3-6 violent tornadoes, multiple of which were extremely long tracked. To be fair, 3/14 definitely comes close. That outbreak was completely absurd. It's crazy a similar area has seen such high magnitude outbreaks in a short time.
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Saloma and Bowling Green for sure. I don’t specifically recall there being any specific damage points from Dresden that deserved EF4, but it’s been a while since I’ve looked at that one. However, I can confidently say Defiance was absolutely EF3 tops though. Both of those houses weren’t bolted down: one was completely unanchored and the other was barely anchored. If they went EF4 in Defiance that would have crossed well into overrating territory.
 
UK_EF4 said:
Yes agreed. I think 12/10 stands almost in a separate league for tornado outbreaks in the 2020s. While the event didn't feature some of the absurdly high tornado counts like 3/31/23, 4/12/20, 12/15/21 etc the intensity of tornadoes was pretty ridiculous.

Of those tornadoes, you have 3 with 80+ mile tracks and two with 120+ mile tracks! How many other recent outbreaks boast similar?

Intensity wise, you have the two official EF4s which both produced high end damage. One of which, you can arguably say was the strongest of the decade and a prime EF5 candidate.

Then, you can make the case that at least 1-2, but some would say as many as 4 separate tornadoes have cases for violent ratings (Saloma KY, Defiance MO, Dresden TN and Bowling Green KY). I don't think all of these are slam-dunks, but enough a debate is to be had, and enough that I don't think people would be coomplaining if they had got EF4. They would have been rated F4 in the Fujita era, let's say.

So that's an event with (unofficially) 3-6 violent tornadoes, multiple of which were extremely long tracked. To be fair, 3/14 definitely comes close. That outbreak was completely absurd. It's crazy a similar area has seen such high magnitude outbreaks in a short time.
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yeah, the fact that many tornadoes on this day were underrated downplays how violent it truly was.
 
buckeye05 said:
Saloma and Bowling Green for sure. I don’t specifically recall there being any specific damage points from Dresden that deserved EF4, but it’s been a while since I’ve looked at that one. However, I can confidently say Defiance was absolutely EF3 tops though. Both of those houses weren’t bolted down: one was completely unanchored and the other was barely anchored. If they went EF4 in Defiance that would have crossed well into overrating territory.
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Dresden is a tricky one as it was another survey that was relatively unthorough, which is somewhat understandable given the length of track needed to be surveyed. On DAT, I can't see any structures that scream EF4.

However, the tornado was quite narrow and fast moving, and clearly was contextually violent.

1790015786691.png1790015802758.png
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I don't know if we will ever get ground pics of some of the structures to determine if they should receive EF4 ratings the "proper way", however the tree damage and nature of debris being strewn and windrowed seems consistent with violent intensity. On a context basis I can see this being EF4.

Defiance, I would personally agree, though I included it given we have seen EF4 for fairly similar (those 2013 October EF4s, one of the Nov 2022 EF4s) and context is not a million miles off - though I do think it probably is on the EF3 side of the boundary.

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UK_EF4 said:
Dresden is a tricky one as it was another survey that was relatively unthorough, which is somewhat understandable given the length of track needed to be surveyed. On DAT, I can't see any structures that scream EF4.

However, the tornado was quite narrow and fast moving, and clearly was contextually violent.

View attachment 55031View attachment 55032
View attachment 55033View attachment 55034

I don't know if we will ever get ground pics of some of the structures to determine if they should receive EF4 ratings the "proper way", however the tree damage and nature of debris being strewn and windrowed seems consistent with violent intensity. On a context basis I can see this being EF4.

Defiance, I would personally agree, though I included it given we have seen EF4 for fairly similar (those 2013 October EF4s, one of the Nov 2022 EF4s) and context is not a million miles off - though I do think it probably is on the EF3 side of the boundary.

View attachment 55035
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I think contextually speaking, Dresden is a decent EF4 candidate. The rowing and overall debris pattern along with the extensive denuding give further credence to that. Also, the door wrapped around the shredded tree is very impressive as well. What an insane day 12/10 was.
 
UK_EF4 said:
Dresden is a tricky one as it was another survey that was relatively unthorough, which is somewhat understandable given the length of track needed to be surveyed. On DAT, I can't see any structures that scream EF4.

However, the tornado was quite narrow and fast moving, and clearly was contextually violent.

View attachment 55031View attachment 55032
View attachment 55033View attachment 55034

I don't know if we will ever get ground pics of some of the structures to determine if they should receive EF4 ratings the "proper way", however the tree damage and nature of debris being strewn and windrowed seems consistent with violent intensity. On a context basis I can see this being EF4.

Defiance, I would personally agree, though I included it given we have seen EF4 for fairly similar (those 2013 October EF4s, one of the Nov 2022 EF4s) and context is not a million miles off - though I do think it probably is on the EF3 side of the boundary.

View attachment 55035
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But the thing is the October 2013 EF4s were largely based on damage to industrial buildings and farm machinery rather than houses, and Moville/Pierson is considered one of the most questionable EF4s of all time. For November of 2022, both of those EF4s swept away homes that had anchor bolts or were extensively nailed down to their slabs. Neither example is really comparable to Defiance.
 
speedbump305 said:
I think contextually speaking, Dresden is a decent EF4 candidate. The rowing and overall debris pattern along with the extensive denuding give further credence to that. Also, the door wrapped around the shredded tree is very impressive as well. What an insane day 12/10 was.
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I mean not really. That’s not wind rowing. It’s a very average debris scatter pattern with no striations or end to end orientation of the lumber. In fact none of what you’re describing isn’t something that a tornado in the EF3 range couldn’t do (debranching but not badly debarking trees, scattering debris, wrapping a door around a tree).

If we had some real wind rowing, heavy debarking, and other actual violent contextual indicators in play, then it’d be more worth considering. I maintain that Saloma and Bowling Green were the only missed EF4s from that event.
 
buckeye05 said:
I mean not really. That’s not wind rowing. It’s a very average debris scatter pattern with no striations or end to end orientation of the lumber. In fact none of what you’re describing isn’t something that a tornado in the EF3 range couldn’t do (debranching but not badly debarking trees, scattering debris, wrapping a door around a tree).

If we had some real wind rowing, heavy debarking, and other actual violent contextual indicators in play, then it’d be more worth considering. I maintain that Saloma and Bowling Green were the only missed EF4s from that event.
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Ahhh good eye. I see what you mean now, I should’ve known better when looking at the photos. And I agree that Saloma absolutely should have been rated EF4 and the fact it was rated a low end EF3 is absurd. Why Bowling Green was downgraded as well I will never understand.
 
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