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Significant Tornado Events

buckeye05 said:
I thought Vilonia ripped the door off an above ground storm shelter, if you’re referring to the one that failed in Mayflower and resulted in a fatality?

Also, I had no idea that Greensburg damaged concrete/pavement. Are there photos of this?
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Same! i had absolutely no idea Greensburg was able to do that. And i’ve never heard Vilonia doing that either
 
buckeye05 said:
Yup, for older events, the best way to get an accurate idea of what happened is having a combination of both personal accounts and photos. But like you said, that isn't easy. I'm wary of text-only accounts too, as old journals and newspapers will often dramatize or talk-up the severity of damage, or simply mis-report what happened. In these cases, the photos that eventually surface sometimes reveal a less intense event than what images our minds conjure up when reading the written accounts.
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Big fan of those "leveled" and "blown/swept away" homes that have, like, a roof torn away or a couple exterior walls collapsed. A tradition that inexplicably continues to this day.
 
locomusic01 said:
Big fan of those "leveled" and "blown/swept away" homes that have, like, a roof torn away or a couple exterior walls collapsed. A tradition that inexplicably continues to this day.
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Hey at least back then, it was actually true when the media said it “hit with no warning” lol

One of my media pet peeves for sure. Up there with how every Australian tornado is reported as a “mini tornado” or a “freak storm”.
 
buckeye05 said:
Hey at least back then, it was actually true when the media said it “hit with no warning” lol

One of my media pet peeves for sure. Up there with how every Australian tornado is reported as a “mini tornado” or a “freak storm”.
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It was the same way with California tornadoes during the 1900s. They called every tornado a “mini cyclone“ even if it was significant. In Britain they do the same thing as Australia so maybe it is just a British empire thing.
 
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Marshal79344 said:
No, but it's in this news article: https://www.kansas.com/news/weather/tornado/article147226009.html
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Vilonia caused a shelter to fail. Don't think it actually ripped the door but it was able punch it open. Yet more proof how underrated this thing was.

kfor.com

Officials investigate after shelter fails to protect tornado victim

VILONIA, Ark. – An Arkansas woman died inside of her above ground safe room after a violent tornado tore through her town. A violent EF-4 tornado tore through Vilonia, Arkansas Sunday night d…
kfor.com kfor.com
 
Juliett Bravo Kilo said:
Vilonia caused a shelter to fail. Don't think it actually ripped the door but it was able punch it open. Yet more proof how underrated this thing was.

kfor.com

Officials investigate after shelter fails to protect tornado victim

VILONIA, Ark. – An Arkansas woman died inside of her above ground safe room after a violent tornado tore through her town. A violent EF-4 tornado tore through Vilonia, Arkansas Sunday night d…
kfor.com kfor.com
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I believe the shelter door was improperly installed though.
 
MNTornadoGuy said:
I believe the shelter door was improperly installed though.
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Was it really? Some tornadoes are powerful enough it doesn't matter what you do; you're toast unless you're in an underground concrete bunker or drive out of the way.
The sad thing is, if it was improperly installed the surveyors probably used this as yet another excuse to rank it EF4 instead of EF5.
 
buckeye05 said:
One of my media pet peeves for sure. Up there with how every Australian tornado is reported as a “mini tornado” or a “freak storm”.
Click to expand...
Speaking of which, there was another one in Sydney a day or two ago.

I can still remember that a couple of news sites called the March 21 2013 Cobram-Mulwala tornado a 'mini tornado'. Because an F3 with ≈68 km track that was on the ground for over an hour is still too small. Definitely my best tornado moment that, I picked it off the radar a few minutes after touchdown, not bad with our crap public radar display. I don't expect to see a signature like that again for a long time.
 
A Guy said:
Speaking of which, there was another one in Sydney a day or two ago.

I can still remember that a couple of news sites called the March 21 2013 Cobram-Mulwala tornado a 'mini tornado'. Because an F3 with ≈68 km track that was on the ground for over an hour is still too small. Definitely my best tornado moment that, I picked it off the radar a few minutes after touchdown, not bad with our crap public radar display. I don't expect to see a signature like that again for a long time.
Click to expand...
I remember that. After the Mulwala tornado, which was actually later upgraded to an EF4, I remember thinking there was no way they could call it "mini" but they did anyway. Needless to say, there is nothing remotely "mini" about a violent, multiple-vortex EF4 tornado. IDK why they insist on doing that. Do many Australians believe that tornadoes are a strictly American phenomenon, and assume any tornadic event in Australia is not a "full fledged" tornado because of this? It's bizarre to me.
 
buckeye05 said:
I remember that. After the Mulwala tornado, which was actually later upgraded to an EF4, I remember thinking there was no way they could call it "mini" but they did anyway. Needless to say, there is nothing remotely "mini" about a violent, multiple-vortex EF4 tornado. IDK why they insist on doing that. Do many Australians believe that tornadoes are a strictly American phenomenon, and assume any tornadic event in Australia is not a "full fledged" tornado because of this? It's bizarre to me.
Click to expand...
The rating of the Mulwala tornado is a bit more complex than that (I was pleased to see it got a mention in this thread BTW). It's officially recorded as an F3 on the Bureau of Meteorology database (which is absolutely horrendous and includes no other information), and the Tamleaugh-Swanpool tornado from the same day, which tracked about 60 km, an F1. The most intense damage I damage photograph I saw (but didn't save and it's over five years since I saw it) was low-end F3 - a two story house had the entire upper story removed. It's worth pointing out that at least since the 90s or so Australian building standards are much higher than the US average, because though there is some variation with likelihood of certain threats, we share our standards with earthquake-prone New Zealand.

The EF4 rating (and EF3 for the Tamleaugh tornado) was applied by the BoM meteorologist Coombs, whose presentation you might have seen. That rating appears to be inferred rather than derived directly from DIs, as there were almost no DIs other than trees on the stronger (left) side of the path, or in general really. This is supported by tree damage and a 335 km/h reading from the Yarrawonga radar, which the tornado passed very close to. So far as I know it caused no actual EF4 building damage. Tree damage itself is also a bit more difficult as many Eucalypts shed thin outer bark (that fuels our famous bushfires) and it's hard tell if this or live bark was removed. That rating is very liberal and would never pass in the US, although as we have a thread complaining about, some recent ratings there are ridiculous low-balls (I'm convinced if April 27 was rated the way it's been done recently we'd only end up with 2-3 EF5s, they wouldn't upgrade Rainsville and the ground damage at Philadelphia isn't a standard DI, they seem to be less inclined to call a spade a spade now). The most disappointing thing is that a formal paper was never published on it.

There is an Australian researcher currently at Central Michigan University, John T. Allen, who has done some work on Australian tornado climatology - he was actually intending to publish in 2016 but still hasn't got around to it, and has a paper on tornadoes in 2013 going to press in the MWR soon. He gave the Mulwala storm an F3 rating. Ratings in Australia are very ad-hoc and it's only been recently they've been done officially and formally at all. We officially use the F scale and not the EF scale. This lead to some silly situations, like a 2016 outbreak in the Southern Flinders ranges, where they used the EF DIs and 'converted' them back to F-scale windspeed. There is only one definite violent tornado in the database, the Bucca Queensland F4 on 29/11/1997, but as far as I know even that is not 'official' as such and is based off reports similar to the pre-1971 F-scale ratings. Unfortunately the original report is unobtainium and though I have some photographs of the tornado I have never seen one of the damage.

So far as people's attitude to them here, while with the internet there is less of a perception that they don't happen at all, they certainly aren't put on the same level. Most of our tornadoes here are very small and short lived, and often lack the full condensation funnel that makes a tornado look 'tornadoey'. Bigger ones are very rare and even more rarely caught on camera. The Mulwala event was by far the most significant for at least 21 years. And it's led a 'tornado = mini tornado' mindset. In the South fire and drought dominate all other weather worries.

Australia's climate is not very good for tornadoes, especially big ones. While there was a period where it was thought we might get 2-300 a year at a time when the US was thought to get about 6-800, we now know it's more like 20-30 at the most (the last few years have been very barren, with only a few reports, and the severe storm seasons have been bad in general), though Allen thanks it may be closer to 50. Far from being 'second after the US/Canada' as was once sometimes asserted, conditions are less favourable than the Rio de Plata region, Bengal, Europe, China and probably a few other places as well.
The basic issues is we are too dry, too far north and have the wrong terrain. As a result it is very rare to get the required combination of moisture, instability, shear and helicity to produce strong to violent tornadoes. Usually one or more is missing. Moisture is the biggest, because the synoptic scale systems advect over desert dew points over 15°C aren't common outside of tropical-influenced areas. This leads to weak, high-based storms. Also hard to get an EML when there's a hot desert near sea level directly upwind - the USA's terrain is much better arranged.
Shear is quite hard too, moister troughs are often weak and slow moving, low shear and produce intense rainfall instead. Meanwhile the strongest low level shear is usually with cold fronts that have boundary parallel flow and little helicity.
Tornadic supercells associated with large scale systems that produce the classic east-southeast tracks aren't that common and occur in a scattered area especially on the windward side of the Great Dividing Range and the plains in Central-West NSW etc. Coastal supercells tend towards hail/rain. Those in SE Queensland are quite different, associated with somewhat smaller troughs. These tend bud off the NSW/QLD Border Ranges and move NE and are usually HP cells with big hail - there have been some very destructive hailstorms recently. Storm modes in general tend towards HP or just generally messy, when supercells occur at all. There is a much higher proportion of cool season tornadoes, probably about half although conditions are expected to become less favourable. These are usually generated by low-topped supercells (as low as 8 km) embedded in or ahead of cold fronts. Western Australia and Victoria are the most common places for these.

Overall there simply aren't the conditions to get big tornado outbreaks. The best analogy to the big outbreak producing days like those in the US is probably our big bushfire 'blow up' days in Victoria and SE NSW like 16/2/1983 or 7/2/2009. These are prefrontal trough driven and have strong low level shear with the air coming directly off the central deserts, humidity under 10% and sea level equivalent temps over 40°C. The surface based mixed layer on the dry adiabat can be 4-5 km deep, if you chopped the bottom off and replaced it with humid air it'd resemble your US tornado setup. Helicity can be very high close to the trough as well - I once saw a picture of the Churchill fire from 7/2/2009 (when fires killed 173 people) where the smoke plume was bent nearly 90°. This is where you get the big fire events where single fires burn 25,000 hectares or more in a few hours.
 
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A Guy said:
The rating of the Mulwala tornado is a bit more complex than that (I was pleased to see it got a mention in this thread BTW). It's officially recorded as an F3 on the Bureau of Meteorology database (which is absolutely horrendous and includes no other information), and the Tamleaugh-Swanpool tornado from the same day, which tracked about 60 km, an F1. The most intense damage I damage photograph I saw (but didn't save and it's over five years since I saw it) was low-end F3 - a two story house had the entire upper story removed. It's worth pointing out that at least since the 90s or so Australian building standards are much higher than the US average, because though there is some variation with likelihood of certain threats, we share our standards with earthquake-prone New Zealand.

The EF4 rating (and EF3 for the Tamleaugh tornado) was applied by the BoM meteorologist Coombs, whose presentation you might have seen. That rating appears to be inferred rather than derived directly from DIs, as there were almost no DIs other than trees on the stronger (left) side of the path, or in general really. This is supported by tree damage and a 335 km/h reading from the Yarrawonga radar, which the tornado passed very close to. So far as I know it caused no actual EF4 building damage. Tree damage itself is also a bit more difficult as many Eucalypts shed thin outer bark (that fuels our famous bushfires) and it's hard tell if this or live bark was removed. That rating is very liberal and would never pass in the US, although as we have a thread complaining about, some recent ratings there are ridiculous low-balls (I'm convinced if April 27 was rated the way it's been done recently we'd only end up with 2-3 EF5s, they wouldn't upgrade Rainsville and the ground damage at Philadelphia isn't a standard DI, they seem to be less inclined to call a spade a spade now). The most disappointing thing is that a formal paper was never published on it.

There is an Australian researcher currently at Central Michigan University, John T. Allen, who has done some work on Australian tornado climatology - he was actually intending to publish in 2016 but still hasn't got around to it, and has a paper on tornadoes in 2013 going to press in the MWR soon. He gave the Mulwala storm an F3 rating. Ratings in Australia are very ad-hoc and it's only been recently they've been done officially and formally at all. We officially use the F scale and not the EF scale. This lead to some silly situations, like a 2016 outbreak in the Southern Flinders ranges, where they used the EF DIs and 'converted' them back to F-scale windspeed. There is only one definite violent tornado in the database, the Bucca Queensland F4 on 29/11/1997, but as far as I know even that is not 'official' as such and is based off reports similar to the pre-1971 F-scale ratings. Unfortunately the original report is unobtainium and though I have some photographs of the tornado I have never seen one of the damage.

So far as people's attitude to them here, while with the internet there is less of a perception that they don't happen at all, they certainly aren't put on the same level. Most of our tornadoes here are very small and short lived, and often lack the full condensation funnel that makes a tornado look 'tornadoey'. Bigger ones are very rare and even more rarely caught on camera. The Mulwala event was by far the most significant for at least 21 years. And it's led a 'tornado = mini tornado' mindset. In the South fire and drought dominate all other weather worries.

Australia's climate is not very good for tornadoes, especially big ones. While there was a period where it was thought we might get 2-300 a year at a time when the US was thought to get about 6-800, we now know it's more like 20-30 at the most (the last few years have been very barren, with only a few reports, and the severe storm seasons have been bad in general), though Allen thanks it may be closer to 50. Far from being 'second after the US/Canada' as was once sometimes asserted, conditions are less favourable than the Rio de Plata region, Bengal, Europe, China and probably a few other places as well.
The basic issues is we are too dry, too far north and have the wrong terrain. As a result it is very rare to get the required combination of moisture, instability, shear and helicity to produce strong to violent tornadoes. Usually one or more is missing. Moisture is the biggest, because the synoptic scale systems advect over desert dew points over 15°C aren't common outside of tropical-influenced areas. This leads to weak, high-based storms. Also hard to get an EML when there's a hot desert near sea level directly upwind - the USA's terrain is much better arranged.
Shear is quite hard too, moister troughs are often weak and slow moving, low shear and produce intense rainfall instead. Meanwhile the strongest low level shear is usually with cold fronts that have boundary parallel flow and little helicity.
Tornadic supercells associated with large scale systems that produce the classic east-southeast tracks aren't that common and occur in a scattered area especially on the windward side of the Great Dividing Range and the plains in Central-West NSW etc. Coastal supercells tend towards hail/rain. Those in SE Queensland are quite different, associated with somewhat smaller troughs. These tend bud off the NSW/QLD Border Ranges and move NE and are usually HP cells with big hail - there have been some very destructive hailstorms recently. Storm modes in general tend towards HP or just generally messy, when supercells occur at all. There is a much higher proportion of cool season tornadoes, probably about half although conditions are expected to become less favourable. These are usually generated by low-topped supercells (as low as 8 km) embedded in or ahead of cold fronts. Western Australia and Victoria are the most common places for these.

Overall there simply aren't the conditions to get big tornado outbreaks. The best analogy to the big outbreak producing days like those in the US is probably our big bushfire 'blow up' days in Victoria and SE NSW like 16/2/1983 or 7/2/2009. These are prefrontal trough driven and have strong low level shear with the air coming directly off the central deserts, humidity under 10% and sea level equivalent temps over 40°C. The surface based mixed layer on the dry adiabat can be 4-5 km deep, if you chopped the bottom off and replaced it with humid air it'd resemble your US tornado setup. Helicity can be very high close to the trough as well - I once saw a picture of the Churchill fire from 7/2/2009 (when fires killed 173 people) where the smoke plume was bent nearly 90°. This is where you get the big fire events where single fires burn 25,000 hectares or more in a few hours.
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Those big fire weather troughs sometimes indirectly produce fire tornadoes though that doesn’t really matter. Also I have some damage photos from the Bucca tornado and reportedly it scoured grass according to some eyewitness reports.
1BD982D6-2593-4E21-B81E-D8C4C18477F3.jpeg
0EE545BF-E1C0-4331-911E-342B03F9DAA6.jpeg
 
Juliett Bravo Kilo said:
Was it really? Some tornadoes are powerful enough it doesn't matter what you do; you're toast unless you're in an underground concrete bunker or drive out of the way.
The sad thing is, if it was improperly installed the surveyors probably used this as yet another excuse to rank it EF4 instead of EF5.
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“With the assistance of the National Storm Shelter Association (NSSA), the failed door and frame assembly were shipped to the National Wind Institute Debris Impact Facility at Texas Tech University and examined by a panel of experts (Fig. 31). The door was cut into three sections to examine the interior. No internal steel stiffeners were found, only a cardboard honeycomb core. Such a core did not strengthen the door. In conclusion, Tanner and Kiesling (2014) found that door failure resulted from improper usage of a door, frame, and hardware for a tornado safe room. They indicated that the steel door used in the shelter was not strong enough to be used as a shelter door.
In order for a door to be approved as a shelter door, it must meet or exceed the design and testing criteria established in the ICC-500 standard. Approved shelter doors typically are constructed with 14 gauge steel skin (1.9 mm). By comparison, the skin on the failed Arkansas shelter door was 18 gauge steel (1.2 mm), a thinner material. Approved shelter doors have hinges that typically are 7 gauge (4.76 mm). By comparison, the hinges on the failed Arkansas shelter door were 11 gauge (3.18 mm).
Part of the ICC-500 standard involves resistance to missile impacts, including door systems. Doors must be able to resist three impacts of 244 cm long 2x4 (nominal) traveling at 45 m/s. Impacts shall be within 15.2 cm of the primary lock, upper latch, and hinge. Doors shall not be perforated, opened, dislodged from the frame/hinges, or deformed more than 76.2 mm. These are stout requirements and not every steel door will pass.” It was also struck by a piece of flying debris which caused the failure.
 
Don’t get me wrong, Vilonias damage to the door was still impressive, but if it’s not the best construction, it maybe signal a lesser intensity, but i still absolutely think Vilonia was an EF5 no question
 
If I remember it correctly, Vilonia's shelter damage was in Mayflower, not Vilonia. Tornado did mainly EF4 level damage in Mayflower. So no matter this shlter well built or not, it was not a main factor about determining its intensity AT PEAK.
 
MNTornadoGuy said:
Impressive damage from the 2018 Capitol MT tornado. It even dug a small trench at one point (this is not an impact mark.)
View attachment 6661
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I know that this tornado's damage has been discussed before but still have some confusion about it. A 5-ton tractor completely disassembled and carried downwind like 1 or 2 miles at least? With so many tornado tractor damages in the history I can't even recall a close example of tornado's tractor damage like this. (with pictures) This was seriously increible. Does Case 1070 more fragile or much easier to disassemble than other tractors? I find no evidence of this. Even it was easier to disassemble, it can't be LEGO toys or something like this. Actually tractor was way more harder than normal cars to loft because it was heavier and more lofting-resistant. Many violent tornados can rolled tractor several times at best. But damage severe like this was just unimaginable.
 
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pohnpei said:
I know that this tornado's damage has been discussed before but still have some confusion about it. A 5-ton tractor completely disassembled and carried downwind like 1 or 2 miles at least? With so many tornado tractor damages in the history I can't even recall a close example of tornado's tractor damage like this. (with pictures) This was seriously increible. Does Case 1070 more fragile or much easier to disassemble than other tractors? I find no evidence of this. Even it was easier to disassemble, it can't be LEGO toys or some kinds of this thing. Actually tractor was way more harder than normal vehicle to loft because it was heavier and more lofting-resistant. Many violent tornados can rolled tractor several times at best. But damage severe like this was just unimaginable.
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There are some historical cases of tractors or combines being ripped apart by tornadoes such as one tornado did in WY from the 1930s.
 
One of the most interesting Pacific NW tornadic events is the 6/14/1888 Lexington OR tornado. It touched down near the town of Lexington before moving through a grove which had it’s trees twisted off with “an evenness that it is remarkable.” The damage inside the town of Lexington as buildings were only unroofed or shifted off their foundations. The damage outside of the town was more significant with multiple farms being “blown to pieces” and one of these farms was swept away with “not a board remaining on the foundations.” Much like the 6/3/1894 event this was likely apart of a larger outbreak as another tornado reportedly downed timber from near Long Creek to near Monument. The setup was unusual for the region as there was a potent jet streak moving into the region with SFC temps likely in the low to upper 70s. 3 people were killed and 11 injured.
91E6B32F-4F36-4A63-B92F-9E6698A6B319.gif
A5CC47B5-7697-4FFD-A0E1-4043567084AA.gif
 
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