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The thing that gets me about Jarrell is that nothing about the synoptic setup, the supercell's radar signature, or the visual appearance of the tornado itself suggested it was capable of anything beyond a "typical" violent tornado (of course the occurrence of any violent tornado being a fairly exceptional event, but you know what I mean). But the damage is just...on another level. Nothing quite like that totality of destruction has been seen before or since. How? Why? Other tornadoes have formed off mesoscale features in similar high CAPE/low shear environments and moved slowly, but none of them have done that extreme degree of damage.
 
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There have been strong to violent tornadoes on days that were not forecasted well previously, albeit pretty rare. If my memory is correct the Jarrell tornado was moving very slowly and spent several minutes over that one particular neighborhood.
 

TH2002

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I've done a TON of research on the 2011 Joplin tornado and I've concluded that the tornado's EF5 rating was well deserved. Here are some pictures detailing probable EF5 damage points along the tornado's path:
Joplin-EF5-shifferdecker-ave.JPG
Joplin-EF5-shifferdecker-ave-aerial.JPG
Before and after views of a large-two story brick home on Shifferdecker Avenue; this likely well-constructed home was obliterated in an EF5 fashion. Will Norton died in this area and his body was found in the pond visible on the lower-right.

Joplin-EF5-west-26th.JPG
Aerial view of damage on West 26th Street. Buildings were obliterated and swept from their foundations, with vehicles and cascades of debris ending up in basements. In the foreground, trees and shrubs were completely debarked.

Joplin-EF5-west-26th-before2.JPGJoplin-EF5-west-26th-before.JPG
Homes on West 26th street as they appeared before the tornado.

Joplin-EF5-west-26th-2.JPG
West 26th Street after the tornado, the homes simply vanished. Most of the homes in this picture were never rebuilt.

Joplin-EF5-salon-before.JPG
View of a salon on West 26th Street as the building appeared before the tornado.

Joplin-EF5-salon.jpg
The salon from the previous picture (large foundation visible at the bottom right) was completely obliterated and swept away, with little debris left behind. The two large buildings visible in the background were also devastated.

Joplin-EF5-damage-home.JPG
House after house in residential areas of Joplin were devastated. The well-anchored frame home in the foreground has been swept completely away.

Joplin-EF5-greenbriar-2.JPG
Ruins of the Greenbriar Nursing Home, a large brick building. The facility was totally leveled to the ground and partly swept away, killing 21 people.
 

TH2002

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Joplin-EF5-greenbriar.JPG
Aerial view of the Greenbriar Nursing Home showing how the complex was partially swept away.

Joplin-EF5-parking-stops-2.JPG
Rebar-anchored concrete parking stops were torn from parking lots and thrown. This parking stop was thrown into the nearby foundation of a home that was swept away.

Joplin-EF5-foundations-2.jpgJoplin-EF5-foundations-circled-2.JPG
Devastation. Empty foundations have been circled in the second picture

Joplin-EF5-foundations.jpgJoplin-EF5-foundations-circled.JPG
The tornado continued to sweep away homes on the other side of Joplin High School. Empty foundations circled in red again. Circled in green is an interesting feat of damage showcasing the tornado's multiple-vortex structure. Part of the home was swept completely away while the other half remained standing.

Joplin-EF5-pavement-scouring.JPG
Pavement scoured from the parking lot of Pizza by Stout.

Joplin-EF5-walmart.JPG
The destroyed Walmart, sections of scoured pavement are visible at center-left.

Joplin-EF5-home-depot.JPG
Home Depot. Steel beams were mangled and some were even broken in two in nearby fields.

Joplin-EF5-warehouses.JPG
Well-constructed warehouses were swept completely away, and anchor bolts were reportedly ripped out of the foundations. A trail of ground scouring and wind rowing can be seen center-right; the infamous Fastrip video was filmed at the destroyed Fastrip gas station (just out of frame at the top right corner).
 
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The thing that gets me about Jarrell is that nothing about the synoptic setup, the supercell's radar signature, or the visual appearance of the tornado itself suggested it was capable of anything beyond a "typical" violent tornado (of course the occurrence of any violent tornado being a fairly exceptional event, but you know what I mean). But the damage is just...on another level. Nothing quite like that totality of destruction has been seen before or since. How? Why? Other tornadoes have formed off mesoscale features in similar high CAPE/low shear environments and moved slowly, but none of them have done that extreme degree of damage.
I think there was another tornado that occurred in Texas, Loyal Valley 1999, that seems to have been similar to Jarrell in terms of slow-moving and complete annihilation of everything it touched, it was spawned from a supercell that moved slowly and took a deviant SE-SSE motion, but this event is almost entirely unknown and there very few photos damage photographs from it. It was ranked an F4 but undoubtedly had F5 potential; but thankfully seems not to have been as catastrophic as Jarrell.
 

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I've posted about this tornado before but the image quality sucked so I decided to repost it with better images this time. On April 26, 1940 what Grazulis believes may be the most intensely damaging tornado west of the Rocky Mountains tore apart five farms near the town of Gooding, ID. Automobiles were thrown up to 150 yards, trees were stripped of foliage and branches, a large combine was reportedly mangled beyond recognition, a marriage license was found two miles from the house it originated from and three farmhouses were destroyed with one being nearly leveled.
Screenshot_2021-03-07 Twin Falls Idaho Evening Times Archives Apr 27, 1940, p 8(1).png
Screenshot_2021-03-07 Twin Falls Idaho Evening Times Archives Apr 27, 1940, p 2.png
one.jpg
second.jpg
three.jpg
four.jpg
five.jpg
six.jpg
 
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locomusic01

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It lives! :D

It's really cool to see this thread's still going strong. The original was an amazing repository of photos and info and it looks like this one is, too. I haven't done much research in the last few years aside from occasional work on my blog, but I've got a bunch of stuff saved over years and years that I should probably post here at some point.

He is @locomusic01 here.

Might mean we're getting a Tupelo/Gainesville article soon :cool:.

Only four or five years late, haha. I'm hoping I'll have enough free time to finish it before the anniversary. If not, I might split it into two parts and publish the first one for now. I've already got more than enough written for that, so that's my backup plan.
 

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I think there was another tornado that occurred in Texas, Loyal Valley 1999, that seems to have been similar to Jarrell in terms of slow-moving and complete annihilation of everything it touched, it was spawned from a supercell that moved slowly and took a deviant SE-SSE motion, but this event is almost entirely unknown and there very few photos damage photographs from it. It was ranked an F4 but undoubtedly had F5 potential; but thankfully seems not to have been as catastrophic as Jarrell.

Yes, these kinds of events aren't all that unusual (relatively speaking), especially in Central Texas. Loyal Valley is probably the best example. There was a similar event on May 12, 2000 as well IIRC, with a very intense tornado (officially F3 but probably stronger) striking near Lake Whitney. Of course, Jarrell's extraordinary violence sets it apart, but I suspect we'd have seen similar instances of incredible damage from Loyal Valley if it hadn't occurred in such a sparsely populated area. What little we do have to go on makes it clear that it was an extremely violent tornado.

YMl7cWb.jpg


FGjuBld.jpg


MKT7GKf.jpg
 
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View attachment 6524
Aerial view of the Greenbriar Nursing Home showing how the complex was partially swept away.

View attachment 6525
Rebar-anchored concrete parking stops were torn from parking lots and thrown. This parking stop was thrown into the nearby foundation of a home that was swept away.

View attachment 6526View attachment 6527
Devastation. Empty foundations have been circled in the second picture

View attachment 6528View attachment 6529
The tornado continued to sweep away homes on the other side of Joplin High School. Empty foundations circled in red again. Circled in green is an interesting feat of damage showcasing the tornado's multiple-vortex structure. Part of the home was swept completely away while the other half remained standing.

View attachment 6530
Pavement scoured from the parking lot of Pizza by Stout.

View attachment 6531
The destroyed Walmart, sections of scoured pavement are visible at center-left.

View attachment 6532
Home Depot. Steel beams were mangled and some were even broken in two in nearby fields.

View attachment 6533
Well-constructed warehouses were swept completely away, and anchor bolts were reportedly ripped out of the foundations. A trail of ground scouring and wind rowing can be seen center-right; the infamous Fastrip video was filmed at the destroyed Fastrip gas station (just out of frame at the top right corner).
This thread has a ton of pictures from Joplin taken by Ryan McGinnis, they're all copyrighted in his name so I don't want to post any of these pictures without his permission.


These 2 videos show the truck wrapped around a tree directly at the frame:

1.


2.
 
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Yes, these kinds of events aren't all that unusual (relatively speaking), especially in Central Texas. Loyal Valley is probably the best example. There was a similar event on May 12, 2000 as well IIRC, with a very intense tornado (officially F3 but probably stronger) striking near Lake Whitney. Of course, Jarrell's extraordinary violence sets it apart, but I suspect we'd have seen similar instances of incredible damage from Loyal Valley if it hadn't occurred in such a sparsely populated area. What little we do have to go on makes it clear that it was an extremely violent tornado.

YMl7cWb.jpg


FGjuBld.jpg


MKT7GKf.jpg
What exactly about central Texas makes it conducive to these kind of events? What exactly made Jarrell so phenomenally intense?
Also, I swear there's another picture from this thing, with a beat up pickup truck and severe ground scouring visible in the background but I can't seem to find it at the moment.
 
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Colorized photos from the 1987 Teton-Yellowstone F4 I found in WeatherWise.
View attachment 6542
View attachment 6543
I'm sure there's quite a bit more pictures from this thing but they're probably lost in National Park Archives somewhere. Also, due to how vast and remote the wilderness up there is a thorough damage survey on the ground was next to impossible. The fact that most of the damage path burned in the fires next year doesn't help matters.
 

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The parent supercell complex responsible for the Joplin Tornado had been in progress for quite some time and had exhibited merely broad rotation, nothing too impressive. However, things dramatically began to change as the group of supercells underwent a period of organization. A new supercell fired to the south of one that was currently in progress and caused it to rapidly intensify. While these two cells were intensifying, a third cell formed to the south and connected with the other two, which formed one big complex, after which the tornado rapidly evolved. The more vertical the updraft profile of an environment is, the more efficient the updraft becomes at utilizing the available wind shear and turning it into a tornado. The updraft was significantly strengthened by this convective merger and was so close to vertical that the velocity signature, despite being scanned by the radar from a height of 5,000 feet, matched up perfectly with the center of the damage path. This is something that almost never happens. There have been several other examples of major tornadoes evolving rapidly out of convective mergers, such as the Mullinville, KS EF3 from May 23, 2008 (the one with the extreme velocity signature) and the Pisgah - Flat Rock, AL area EF4 on February 6, 2008

Here's the full radar sequence from the beginning of the mergers to the tornado reaching EF5 intensity. This occurred in a time span of about 48 minutes.

JOPLIN1.pngJOPLIN2.pngJOPLIN3.pngJOPLIN4.pngJOPLIN5.pngJOPLIN6.pngJOPLIN7.pngJOPLIN8.pngJOPLIN9.pngJOPLIN10.png
 

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Two of the most impressive Joplin photos I have:

The first one is an aerial of part of the damage path south of Joplin (I'm not too familiar with this tornado's damage path so some help in identifying exactly where this is would be appreciated, although it appears to be directly south of downtown). It just shows complete annihilation along a very wide damage path. The Joplin Tornado exhibited one of the widest EF4+ damage paths in a tornado I've ever seen, only really comparable to Greensburg.

20110522JOPLINAERIAL5.jpg

The second one is a photo taken somewhere in a residential area of Joplin, showing trees that were just COMPLETELY debarked.
20110522JOPLIN46.PNG
 
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The parent supercell complex responsible for the Joplin Tornado had been in progress for quite some time and had exhibited merely broad rotation, nothing too impressive. However, things dramatically began to change as the group of supercells underwent a period of organization. A new supercell fired to the south of one that was currently in progress and caused it to rapidly intensify. While these two cells were intensifying, a third cell formed to the south and connected with the other two, which formed one big complex, after which the tornado rapidly evolved. The more vertical the updraft profile of an environment is, the more efficient the updraft becomes at utilizing the available wind shear and turning it into a tornado. The updraft was significantly strengthened by this convective merger and was so close to vertical that the velocity signature, despite being scanned by the radar from a height of 5,000 feet, matched up perfectly with the center of the damage path. This is something that almost never happens. There have been several other examples of major tornadoes evolving rapidly out of convective mergers, such as the Mullinville, KS EF3 from May 23, 2008 (the one with the extreme velocity signature) and the Pisgah - Flat Rock, AL area EF4 on February 6, 2008

Here's the full radar sequence from the beginning of the mergers to the tornado reaching EF5 intensity. This occurred in a time span of about 48 minutes.

View attachment 6544View attachment 6545View attachment 6546View attachment 6547View attachment 6548View attachment 6549View attachment 6550View attachment 6551View attachment 6552View attachment 6553
I've read Joplin intersected a boundary of some sorts which is what led to its extremely rapid intensification, this confirms what I read in more scientific terms. Out of curiosity, what caused Joplin to weaken so quickly after it made a hard right and exited the city? Did it lose access to the merger?
 

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There have been strong to violent tornadoes on days that were not forecasted well previously, albeit pretty rare. If my memory is correct the Jarrell tornado was moving very slowly and spent several minutes over that one particular neighborhood.
Jarrell was certainly a slow moving tornado but how slow it was when it hit the Double Creek area was uncertain. Now we know it hit the subdivision at 3:48CDT but when did it leave this place? I've seen some people said it moved at 5mph at this time and some people using radar and SPC Data to estimate speed around 15mph at this time. I've yet to see any clear evidence of the exact transitional speed of this tornado at its peak.
 
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Two of the most impressive Joplin photos I have:

The first one is an aerial of part of the damage path south of Joplin (I'm not too familiar with this tornado's damage path so some help in identifying exactly where this is would be appreciated, although it appears to be directly south of downtown). It just shows complete annihilation along a very wide damage path. The Joplin Tornado exhibited one of the widest EF4+ damage paths in a tornado I've ever seen, only really comparable to Greensburg.

View attachment 6554

The second one is a photo taken somewhere in a residential area of Joplin, showing trees that were just COMPLETELY debarked.
View attachment 6555
Jarrell had an extremely wide swath of F4+ damage, it was around a half mile wide, I believe.
Anyways, never seen this section of Joplin with every single tree completely debarked. Really impressive.
 

TH2002

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This thread has a ton of pictures from Joplin taken by Ryan McGinnis, they're all copyrighted in his name so I don't want to post any of these pictures without his permission.


These 2 videos show the truck wrapped around a tree directly at the frame:

1.


2.

Lots of crazy pictures in that gallery on Stormtrack. In the first video showing the semi wrapped around a debarked tree at about the 10 second mark you can see the empty basement of a building that was completely swept away. Hard to tell for sure though appears that even some of the concrete stemwalling was sheared off. Unsure though if that's the case, that's an EXTREME instance of damage seen I've only seen after the Hackleburg-Phil Campbell tornado.
 

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I've read Joplin intersected a boundary of some sorts which is what led to its extremely rapid intensification, this confirms what I read in more scientific terms. Out of curiosity, what caused Joplin to weaken so quickly after it made a hard right and exited the city? Did it lose access to the merger?
The third cell that you see developing to the south of the two main cells that were combining interfered with the inflow notch, which caused rain-cooled air, which is stable, to obstruct the inflow into the tornado. This caused the tornado to remain weak for the rest of its life, but the updraft was so strong that it persisted for an unusually long time. Similar mergers caused several of the 4/27/2011 tornadoes to dissipate, along with Louisville and Vilonia
 
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