Other very interesting features I found associated with the particular Tri-State Supercell were how it was sunny at Murphysboro at 2:26 PM that day, while Gorham, which is less than 10 miles away, was getting swept away. About 5 minutes before the EF5 tornado arrived, the sky suddenly darkened. About 2 minutes prior to the tornado, the sky became very black and very dark, and then the tornado came. As soon as the tornado had left, the sky became sunny again, and people had to come to terms with the fact that the entire city, or a good portion of it, was gone. This indicates that the tornado was likely at a hook echo on the bottom of the supercell, and was positioned at the back end of the tornadic storm, in a manner that as soon as it moved away the sky would become sunny again.
The tornado itself appeared as a Hackleburg, and was a very close copy of it, except for the damage swath. The damage swath from the Tri-State-Tornado in Murphysboro was extremely erratic and the swath of EF4-EF5 damage was significantly bigger than that of the Hackleburg Tornado. You had rows of homes swept away, and there would be some homes intact in the middle of an entire row of slab foundations.
One particular mind-blowing fact that I have never seen repeated was at Princeton, IN, the final town to be hit by the deadly tornado. The tornado had definitely weakened somewhat by the time it arrived at Princeton but was still strong enough to level homes. The first warning of the tornadic storm was in broad daylight, when debris suddenly began to fall out of the sky, 15 minutes before the tornado arrived. The same sequence of events that occurred at Murphysboro occurred at Princeton, before the tornado moved away. I have NEVER heard of an indication where debris began falling out of the sky before the arrival of a tornado 15 minutes early. Some paper from Murphysboro was also reported to have been found in a city in Ohio, over 400 miles away from the point of origination
Damage Map I created of Murphysboro (Red = swept away, Orange = severely damaged, Yellow = Lightly damaged or not damaged)
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