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Significant Tornado Events

Equus said:
Kelwood was rated an F0 since it hit nothing significant according to this - an unfortunate but unavoidable weakness in rating something we can only judge by its extremely inconsistent and location-dependent aftermath. No doubt we'd be looking at F3+ damage at the very least had a house just happened to be in the field where intensity was the highest.
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It probably should have been rated F-unknown.
 
So, while it's tempting to assume it was overrated as it went through a densely populated urban area, the Bridge Creek-Moore storm of 1999 deserves some recognition. The damage it did while it was in Moore, however isn't the reason. The damage (particularly ground scouring) it did while at Bridge Creek and in rural areas around Grady county is what makes this thing stick out. Also, some automobile damage.

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Juliett Bravo Kilo said:
So, while it's tempting to assume so as it went through a densely populated urban area, the Bridge Creek-Moore storm of 1999 deserves some recognition. The damage it did while it was in Moore, however isn't the reason. The damage (particularly ground scouring) it did while at Bridge Creek and in rural areas around Grady county is what makes this thing stick out. Also, some automobile damage.


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IMO this image was the poster child for (E)F5 vehicle damage until 4/27/11.
 
Something else to note is the higher bases on the plains storms than the Dixie alley storms. What’s interesting about the 4/27 storms is a lot of them started with higher bases and as they progressed north and East got lower to the ground. An example is the Cullman tornado. Most everyone has seen the 33/40 footage as it approaches Cullman but by the time it gets to Arab the entire wall cloud is almost scrapping the ground and the actual vortex is only seen in close up videos. The actual damage path wasn’t as wide as pictures and video appear it would be. Same with Tuscaloosa. Most pics and videos from Mississippi and as it churns through Tuscaloosa show a pretty tall tornado but as it approached north Bham it appeared to be all wall cloud.
 
Weatherphreak said:
Something else to note is the higher bases on the plains storms than the Dixie alley storms. What’s interesting about the 4/27 storms is a lot of them started with higher bases and as they progressed north and East got lower to the ground. An example is the Cullman tornado. Most everyone has seen the 33/40 footage as it approaches Cullman but by the time it gets to Arab the entire wall cloud is almost scrapping the ground and the actual vortex is only seen in close up videos. The actual damage path wasn’t as wide as pictures and video appear it would be. Same with Tuscaloosa. Most pics and videos from Mississippi and as it churns through Tuscaloosa show a pretty tall tornado but as it approached north Bham it appeared to be all wall cloud.
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Someone posted a thread on the old significant tornadoes thread (or a related one) that was a map of tracks of Category 4 & 5 tornadoes through Alabama, going back to 1920. Many of these tornadoes had a tendency to curve to the left or right as soon as they came off the Cumberland Plateau as well. What was interesting is that the points these tornadoes curved tended to be when their cloud bases got lower as well. Wish I kept a picture of that chart.
 
Juliett Bravo Kilo said:
Someone posted a thread on the old significant tornadoes thread (or a related one) that was a map of tracks of Category 4 & 5 tornadoes through Alabama, going back to 1920. Many of these tornadoes had a tendency to curve to the left or right as soon as they came off the Cumberland Plateau as well. What was interesting is that the points these tornadoes curved tended to be when their cloud bases got lower as well. Wish I kept a picture of that chart.
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I know the 4/27 storms tended to track more NE than ENE the farther east they got. Most of that was probably due to the Low lifting thus causing the upper level dynamics to steer the storms that way.
 
Weatherphreak said:
I know the 4/27 storms tended to track more NE than ENE the farther east they got. Most of that was probably due to the Low lifting thus causing the upper level dynamics to steer the storms that way.
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Another interesting thing I've noticed is that the section of northwestern Alabama from Marion and Lamar Counties to Limestone and Madison Counties has had an incredible amount of violent tornadoes over the years, several of them all occurring in the 1974 and 2011 super outbreaks. Really must be a perfect mix of geography, topography and climate.
 
Juliett Bravo Kilo said:
Oh yes, bigger and bulkier. My grandparents have some big lumbering American cars from the 1950s so I know what you mean. Makes you appreciate reports of cars being thrown a quarter to half a mile back then even more.
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My dad when he was 12 years old saw the damage from the Udall, Kansas tornado on May 25, 1955. My dad has been gone for 16 years but I remember him telling me the damage it did was unbelievable.
 
I am not sure how heavy the vehicles the Andover tornado mangled beyond recognition. They were still pretty heavy back then and most of them were probably from the 1970s and 1980s.
 
Also there was a tornado on June 15, 1990 that went through parts of Red Willow and Hitchcock County, NB and literally turned tractors, vehicles, other farm equipment, a cast iron skillet, an iron, and a shovel into literal granulated shards. These one people who lost their van in the tornado had to find a piece of it for insurance purposes. They found part of the firewall 7 miles away.
 
Shakespeare2016 said:
I am not sure how heavy the vehicles the Andover tornado mangled beyond recognition. They were still pretty heavy back then and most of them were probably from the 1970s and 1980s.
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Honestly the complete destruction and mangling of them makes that irrelevant to me. I mean, one of them was carried an entire MILE and so thoroughly mangled that surveyors couldn't even tell if it was a car or a truck. At that point does it really matter how heavy they were? Not trying to come across as argumentative so if I do then sorry.
That said, it would be interesting to get an auto expert in here who would be able to look at pics of those vehicles mangled by Andover, Udall, Bridge Creek or any other insanely violent tornado and assess how impressive the damage is based on the make, model and year of the car.
 
Juliett Bravo Kilo said:
Honestly the complete destruction and mangling of them makes that irrelevant to me. I mean, one of them was carried an entire MILE and so thoroughly mangled that surveyors couldn't even tell if it was a car or a truck. At that point does it really matter how heavy they were? Not trying to come across as argumentative so if I do then sorry.
That said, it would be interesting to get an auto expert in here who would be able to look at pics of those vehicles mangled by Andover, Udall, Bridge Creek or any other insanely violent tornado and assess how impressive the damage is based on the make, model and year of the car.
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Unfortunately, they're so badly mangled that information would probably be impossible to ascertain, at least from looking at a picture.
 
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