Juliett Bravo Kilo
Member
Saragosa was another classic case of terrible timing. There have been several instances of tornadoes barely missing graduation ceremonies, such as the June 5, 2010, Millbury, OH EF4, and the Joplin Tornado. However, even though this tornado lasted for less than 5 miles, it just so happened to be that Saragosa was right in the path. This too, was another classic case of a rather weak surface low interacting with a highly unstable atmosphere, influencing favorable wind profiles for tornadoes and initiation. 0000 UTC observations from Del Rio shows a very unstable, healthy, and thick updraft profile. The wind profiles definitely favor violent tornado activity, but the hodograph and critical angle makes me think that some sort of boundary interaction with the parent supercell helped to steady out the main updraft and hold out long enough to allow a tornado to come out of the updraft before the supercell would cycle again. The exact same thing happened with the EF2 Tornado in the Black Hills Forest on July 6, 2020.
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The tornado initially formed as a small, weak condensation funnel before a second, much larger funnel formed just to its right. The two funnels can be seen below.
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The two funnels had merged into one large tornado, which grew into an extremely large and violent F4 by the time it entered the southern side of town. It leveled several homes along a very wide swath. Two lives were taken here before the tornado moved right towards the church, where the preschool graduation was taking place. One man who was inside the church yelled, "There's a tornado coming!" Right before the building was struck and swept away by the tornado, which likely saved many lives. Every single part of the building, save for a portion of the back wall and foundation, was completely obliterated and swept away. Most of the fatalities occurred when parents were struck by debris trying to protect their children.
Photo of the remains of the schoolhouse:
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The tornado continued its devastating course through town, striking another subdivision to the north, killing a family of 3 in a home before it exited the town. As the tornado exited the town, it killed a teenage girl who was trying to escape the tornado in her car. The tornado lasted no more than 5 miles after leaving the town, and the parent supercell never produced again. Several trees sustained debarking throughout the town and the ground was scoured. This tornado would definitely be awarded an EF4 rating today.
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Warren Faidley has a book with several photographs he took after visiting Saragosa the day after the tornado went through, some of them I still can't find on the Internet to this day. Anyways, here's a couple photographs.
The first is a better quality pic of the two funnels:
Second is of a fork impaled into a tree:
Warren Faidley recounts that the entrance sign of the town was torn in two and that the "Sara" half was found in the city limits and the "Gosa" half was found covered in dirt half a mile outside the city limits. Wish I could find a picture of that.