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pohnpei

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On a bit of an unrelated note, do I have any fellow hoarders of tornado videos? Here are the stats of my collection so far; keep in mind that the first picture isn't even CLOSE to the total number of videos in the archive.
Yes, I also have the habit to hoard tornado videos also damage pictures.(around 15000 at this time) I made a list on youtube of 1200+ best tornado videos list and I hoard most of them.A lot of videos will be lost, especially home videos, if they are not saved now.

 
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J-Rab

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So this outbreak is like quite a bit from the past; a handful of tornadoes got all the publicity while a ton of other violent tornadoes were poorly documented and have little, if any damage photographs or surveys.
Once the Tupelo tornado dissipated, that same supercell quickly dropped another tornado near the Alabama state line that Killed 4 in Red Bay Alabama and 4 more just Northwest of Russellville. That part of Alabama just is a magnet for violent tornadoes.
 
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Once the Tupelo tornado dissipated, that same supercell quickly dropped another tornado near the Alabama state line that Killed 4 in Red Bay Alabama and 4 more just Northwest of Russellville. That part of Alabama just is a magnet for violent tornadoes.
I'm pretty sure that Red Bay, AL F3 is actually the Tupelo, MS tornado, as the damage gaps between the 2 aren't that large and it's likely that the tornado continued into Alabama before dissipating, similar to Smithville and many other Dixie events. Locomusic01 had a post that demonstrated the link between Tupelo and Red Bay once; hopefully he can back me up here.
 

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When comparing Joplin and Moore, I would at least say that Moore produced much more impressive ground scouring. But with that said, Joplin did produce some notable ground scouring as well. It's not quite as dramatic as other examples of this phenomenon, but any tornado that can remove grass from lawns is extremely intense. These were from near the high school.
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pohnpei

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When comparing Joplin and Moore, I would at least say that Moore produced much more impressive ground scouring. But with that said, Joplin did produce some notable ground scouring as well. It's not quite as dramatic as other examples of this phenomenon, but any tornado that can remove grass from lawns is extremely intense. These were from near the high school.
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I noticed that the school damages made by Moore tornado were among one of the strongest ever, much severe than Joplin High School. Both Plaza Towers Elementary School and Briarwood Elementary School were rated 190mph,highest DOD of JHSH DI.
scouring around this area
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I noticed that the school damages made by Moore tornado were among one of the strongest ever, much severe than Joplin High School. Both Plaza Towers Elementary School and Briarwood Elementary School were rated 190mph,highest DOD of JHSH DI.
scouring around this area
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Yeah Moore completely swept away two well-built schools. It also hit a major hospital head on with its core, leaving it in ruins. Joplin's core just missed St. John's Hospital, still the hospital had to be demolished anyways. Moore definitely produced more intense ground scouring.
 

J-Rab

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I'm pretty sure that Red Bay, AL F3 is actually the Tupelo, MS tornado, as the damage gaps between the 2 aren't that large and it's likely that the tornado continued into Alabama before dissipating, similar to Smithville and many other Dixie events. Locomusic01 had a post that demonstrated the link between Tupelo and Red Bay once; hopefully he can back me up here.
I hadn’t heard that but it is certainly possible.
 

TH2002

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Yup, Moore 2013 produced the most intense scouring occurring within a built up urban/suburban area that I've ever seen. Definitely reminiscent of Jarrell.
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Wow I've never seen most of those photos before, the ground scouring from the Moore tornado (especially in Celestial Acres) really does rival that of Jarrell. Granulation of debris also looks pretty intense though not as impressive as Joplin.
 
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View attachment 6524
Aerial view of the Greenbriar Nursing Home showing how the complex was partially swept away.

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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.

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Devastation. Empty foundations have been circled in the second picture

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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.

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Pavement scoured from the parking lot of Pizza by Stout.

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

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

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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).
For the pavement scouring in the Wal-Mart parking lot, I think what happened was streetlights were yanked out and took chunks of the pavement with it, not sure I'd call that scouring.
 

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For the pavement scouring in the Wal-Mart parking lot, I think what happened was streetlights were yanked out and took chunks of the pavement with it, not sure I'd call that scouring.
That and the wood impaled through the concrete curb have been the subject of debate for a while now. Very similar to how the Rainsville tornado pulled up a stone pillar at one residence, taking out a chunk of foundation and some argued that the foundation was "scoured".
 
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That and the wood impaled through the concrete curb have been the subject of debate for a while now. Very similar to how the Rainsville tornado pulled up a stone pillar at one residence, taking out a chunk of foundation and some argued that the foundation was "scoured".
You can see the cracks in the curb where the wood is through, I don't buy the PVC pipe stuff.
 

eric11

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Didn’t Jarrell start as a landspout but grow into a mesocyclonic tornado?
Actually, they are separate ones, there's one home video showed the extremely tiny noodle-like landspout briefly lifted/obsecured by rain curtain mintues before the cone-shaped funnel, the actual Jarrell itself dropped down.Seem like everybody even NWS and NCDC listed them as one single tornado
 
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eric11

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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.

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Well, cell-merging is a common phenomenon, and I remember one paper shows 64% cells tend to get stronger with at least one other cell.Cell-merging could feed in more environmental vortices, thus making a high efficient utilization of low-mid level wind shear to the dominat storm.Other finding shows mother storm's Streamwise Vorticitiy Current's getting evident after merging with other storm, which was the lead precursor of tornadoes.
I can remember there're tons of examples that connect violent tornado originating with storm merging
Here's one article offers an insight to explain how the Pilger East tornado forms under the circumstance of cell-merging.You can also find the moore EF5 case in this article, which was similar to the Pilger event
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In some particular case, given extreme instability and low-level shear could result in what I call a "MegaSupercell".Tons of supercell begin to merge into one, giant cyclic supercell with multiple area of rotation.Events like the one occurred on 5/10/2010 in central OK resulting 14 (or even more) tornadoes, or the one below, the 5/23/2008 central KS supercell, was responsible of 10 tornadoes, many of them were half a mile or miles wide with extreme couplet according to Mike Umscheid's report during the 2008 KS tornado conference
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The most uncommon feature of Joplin is that It happened under an moderate environment, the STP and instability looks adequate for violent tornadoes but far from events like Greensburg and Pilger. Also, the convection system around Joplin looks a little bit messy, definitely not suitable for such an EF5
 
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eric11

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The debate between Moore and Joplin seems to be a prolonged, everlasting battle, there's no correct answer to the debate because both of them represent the top-end of Great Plains, and both of them have marvelous place in the EF5 family. I've had a collection of nearly 700 pics for Moore and 500 pics for Joplin, I just wanna published some of them for a comparsion. Because of the great difference lies in structure building materials and anchoring problems, It's really hard to compare different house damage in different areas so that I may not provide any house damage pics.
Moore
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Joplin
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The debate between Moore and Joplin seems to be a prolonged, everlasting battle, there's no correct answer to the debate because both of them represent the top-end of Great Plains, and both of them have marvelous place in the EF5 family. I've had a collection of nearly 700 pics for Moore and 500 pics for Joplin, I just wanna published some of them for a comparsion. Because of the great difference lies in structure building materials and anchoring problems, It's really hard to compare different house damage in different areas so that I may not provide any house damage pics.
Moore
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Joplin
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Overall, I'd say Moore 2013 is more intense then Joplin due to the much more pronouncing ground scouring, that said, it only killed 23 people. Joplin was the first tornado since 1953 to kill 100+ people. Ultimately, neither of these tornadoes hold a candle to events like Jarrell or Smithville, obviously.
 

eric11

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Overall, I'd say Moore 2013 is more intense then Joplin due to the much more pronouncing ground scouring, that said, it only killed 23 people. Joplin was the first tornado since 1953 to kill 100+ people. Ultimately, neither of these tornadoes hold a candle to events like Jarrell or Smithville, obviously.
The low fatality of Moore may due to its highly visble condensation funnel, a slower movement and narrower width, I can't imagine what will happen if a rain-wrapped, slow moving wedge of moore's strength moves directly into the urban area.
Both Moore and Joplin was marvelous, or maybe once in a lifetime I would say(such a tornado with such strength enter a big, modern city with such fatalities and fatality rate).But If you browse enough damage pics, Moore might have produced one of the worst, unbelievable damage in tornado history, at some point, the severity of damage is way surpassing Joplin.The car damage near the Moore Medical Center is beyond description, nearly every car was thrown, mangled beyond recognition, or just vanished(in normal case, the car moving rate on an EF5 track is around 40%, for moore, it is nearly 100%).Needless to say every single tree, bushes, low-lying shrubbs got completely debarked.
For Jarrell, It did push every damage indicator to the limit(the car and tree damage is either the strongest or as strong as Moore considering the debris amount and tree species are different from that in Moore).But I'm not sure what will happen If a jarrell-like enters big city(maybe near-ground winds will be largely reduced due to dense buildings), its moving speed remains a mystery as well.
For Smithville, the severity of its damage may not catch up with Moore and Jarrell, but if you consider its ridiculous moving speed, It is the one that most likely to produce the strongest wind on earth undoubtfully
 
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