Significant Tornado Events

[Marshal79344]

I found some images from the Tornado of June 17th, 1882 that hit the town of Grinnell, Iowa square in the middle. It's absolutely stunning how high-quality some of these images are, and how there are more photos of damage from this tornado than there are of other intense tornadoes that have occurred after the year 2000.

 

[locomusic01]

Well, ended up taking an extra day because I got an email from someone I really wanted to talk to/include in the article. Anyway, it's done now. And only two days late!

May 3, 1999 — The Bridge Creek–Moore Tornado

These projects take an enormous amount of time and effort, but they don’t deserve to be stuck behind a paywall. If you’d like to support my work and ensure these stories remain accessible to all, p…

stormstalker.wordpress.com

 

[MNTornadoGuy]

Well, ended up taking an extra day because I got an email from someone I really wanted to talk to/include in the article. Anyway, it's done now. And only two days late!

May 3, 1999 — The Bridge Creek–Moore Tornado

These projects take an enormous amount of time and effort, but they don’t deserve to be stuck behind a paywall. If you’d like to support my work and ensure these stories remain accessible to all, p…

stormstalker.wordpress.com

Woah Bridge Creek was an extremely violent tornado. That damage is comparable or maybe even exceeds that of the 2011 El Reno tornado.

 

[andyhb]

Well, ended up taking an extra day because I got an email from someone I really wanted to talk to/include in the article. Anyway, it's done now. And only two days late!

May 3, 1999 — The Bridge Creek–Moore Tornado

These projects take an enormous amount of time and effort, but they don’t deserve to be stuck behind a paywall. If you’d like to support my work and ensure these stories remain accessible to all, p…

stormstalker.wordpress.com

Exemplary as usual, also soundly puts to rest the rumbling that this tornado was anything less than well into the F5 category (or EF5 today).

 

[Marshal79344]

Well, ended up taking an extra day because I got an email from someone I really wanted to talk to/include in the article. Anyway, it's done now. And only two days late!

May 3, 1999 — The Bridge Creek–Moore Tornado

These projects take an enormous amount of time and effort, but they don’t deserve to be stuck behind a paywall. If you’d like to support my work and ensure these stories remain accessible to all, p…

stormstalker.wordpress.com

Absolutely stunning! Incredible!

 

[locomusic01]

Exemplary as usual, also soundly puts to rest the rumbling that this tornado was anything less than well into the F5 category (or EF5 today).

 

[locomusic01]

Woah Bridge Creek was an extremely violent tornado. That damage is comparable or maybe even exceeds that of the 2011 El Reno tornado.

I came into the article like a lot of people probably - I knew it was really intense, but maybe not historically so. I definitely had to reevaluate my opinion on that lol. For my money, I'd say it's as violent as any tornado I've ever researched.

Jim LaDue was involved in the survey and he said that it's still the most violent he's ever seen. I don't think he's alone in that assessment, either.

FWIW, I didn't hear back from Tim Marshall in time for the article, but I remember listening to a podcast a while back - maybe WeatherBrains? - where he named Jarrell as the most violent he'd ever surveyed. Some of the damage in Bridge Creek is pretty comparable to Jarrell though (which is saying a LOT), and at a pretty brisk forward speed.

Should also add that the damage in parts of Moore is super impressive as well, especially for a densely populated area where you'd expect near-surface winds to be slowed somewhat. Also thought it was interesting that, much like Joplin, it sucked out a number of manhole covers in tightly packed subdivisions.

 

[MNTornadoGuy]

The damage Mulhall did was more impressive than I thought. The foundation being reportedly dislodged and a large tractor being torn apart are pretty impressive.

 

[locomusic01]

Going through some of the stuff I didn't end up using - the LA Times reported that this bus was thrown about a mile near Bridge Creek. I couldn't find confirmation anywhere else, which is why it doesn't appear in the article, but two different people I talked to who lived in BC at the time independently said they'd heard that. No doubt the tornado was capable of it, though to me it seems like it'd be a lot more damaged than it is if it were true.

 

[locomusic01]

The damage Mulhall did was more impressive than I thought. The foundation being reportedly dislodged and a large tractor being torn apart are pretty impressive.

Mulhall was so frustrating because it's like some kind of urban legend or something - I talked to several people who'd heard different things or whatever, but I only ended up finding two people who were actually impacted by it (the farmer and one person in town). I'm sure there are photos out there somewhere from the hardest-hit areas, but I had pretty much no luck.

To me, it's basically El Reno 2013. Anything that had the misfortune of being directly in the path of a subvortex (especially on the tornado's right side) was in for a very, very bad time. Outside of that, it's almost like a fun-sized major hurricane.

It's a shame that so little of the tornado's path (relatively speaking) was documented by the DOW, though. I don't think they even captured it at peak intensity.

 

[locomusic01]

Sorry to take over the whole thread, but I figured I'd post some more of the stuff that didn't make it into the article.

A before/after from Bridge Creek, but somehow I lost the person's info and couldn't check exactly where the property was located lol




The tiny trees and shrubs being stripped totally bare reminds me so much of El Reno 2011:





A muddy tangle of debris in Bridge Creek:



In a past life, this was a Ford Aerostar van parked along I-44 near the 16th Street overpass:



Same area - not even sure if this engine block is from the same van:

 

[locomusic01]

Sometimes less is more, but sometimes more Moore is more:

 

[MNTornadoGuy]

Sometimes less is more, but sometimes more Moore is more:

It is scary to think what would have happened if it struck Moore with the intensity it had at Bridge Creek.

 

[TH2002]

Another tree damage pic north of Solomon KS ten months later.
View attachment 9481
A Case IH400 tractor weighs 50000 pounds was thrown nearly a quarter mile.
View attachment 9482

That second picture is actually the mangled remains of a pickup truck. Apparently those were the largest pieces that remained. The rest of the truck was granulated into even smaller pieces or simply never found.

I used to have a picture of what the truck looked like before the tornado... but unfortunately I can't seem to find that anymore.

 

[locomusic01]

It is scary to think what would have happened if it struck Moore with the intensity it had at Bridge Creek.

Yeah, as violent as it was through much of Moore, I was surprised at how many people survived in closets and bathrooms and such. I'm not so sure a lot of those people survive if the tornado's still at peak intensity there. I tried to avoid getting too graphic in the article, but the things it did to many of the victims in Bridge Creek.. yikes. Very Jarrell-like.

Also very, very fortunate that there wasn't huge loss of life on I-35 near Shields Blvd. The interstate was seriously packed with cars, some abandoned but many occupied. I talked with a few people about that and the consensus seems to be that 1. the cars were packed so tightly together (many of them were touching or very nearly so, including a bunch of fender-benders) that they were less likely to be flipped or lofted individually and, 2. the core of the tornado very narrowly missed the traffic jam.

 

[MNTornadoGuy]

One tornado I wish there was more information about is the 5/23/2008 Mullinville KS EF3. This tornado was extremely large, 1.8 miles wide, and had an extremely impressive radar signature. An oil tank battery was carried 1.8 miles, caused EF3 damage to trees, two old houses, and completely swept away a barn. It had a GTG shear value of 281.7 mph or a rotational velocity (vrot) of 140.85 mph.

 

[Juliett Bravo Kilo]

NWS referred to this as a "minimal F5". Yeah, brilliant minds there. Lol.

 

[Juliett Bravo Kilo]

Mulhall was so frustrating because it's like some kind of urban legend or something - I talked to several people who'd heard different things or whatever, but I only ended up finding two people who were actually impacted by it (the farmer and one person in town). I'm sure there are photos out there somewhere from the hardest-hit areas, but I had pretty much no luck.

To me, it's basically El Reno 2013. Anything that had the misfortune of being directly in the path of a subvortex (especially on the tornado's right side) was in for a very, very bad time. Outside of that, it's almost like a fun-sized major hurricane.

It's a shame that so little of the tornado's path (relatively speaking) was documented by the DOW, though. I don't think they even captured it at peak intensity.

What's so impressive of Mulhall is that it didn't even hit the town directly (just barely grazed it) but it was still completely destroyed. The suction vortices that slingshotted around the funnel at 120+ mph reminds me of El Reno 2013. Also, the photo of Alan McClure's car has always peaked my interest as wind-damaged grass is visible in the lower left of the picture, which makes me wonder as to what the areas impacted by the core of the storm looked like (was there massive ground or grass scouring? I guess we'll never know). I have a feeling that Mulhall was actually the most violent tornado of the outbreak but like Red Rock in 1991 isn't well-known as it didn't hit any major populated areas.

 

[CheeselandSkies]

This to me is the poster child for F5 vehicle damage:

Obliterated 4WD Truck

A large 4×4 truck near Willow Lake Estates totally shredded and wrapped around a utility pole.

stormstalker.wordpress.com

 

[Casuarina Head]

Going through some of the stuff I didn't end up using - the LA Times reported that this bus was thrown about a mile near Bridge Creek. I couldn't find confirmation anywhere else, which is why it doesn't appear in the article, but two different people I talked to who lived in BC at the time independently said they'd heard that. No doubt the tornado was capable of it, though to me it seems like it'd be a lot more damaged than it is if it were true.

View attachment 9495

Well, the pickup truck that was thrown ~1.7 mi in the New Wren MS “EF3” of 27 Apr 2011 was also relatively undamaged: except for a segment, it was largely intact, based on photographs posted on Tornado Talk. The incident was fairly well documented, so I assume that a similar occurrence is quite possible. Regarding intensity: the El Reno OK “EF3” on 31 May 2013 caused far less intense DIs near the location of the peak Doppler velocities of ~270 knots than the Jarrell TX F5 did as it obliterated Double Creek Estates on 27 May 1997. Given that the El Reno tornado was moving at a speed comparable to Jarrell and far more slowly than Bridge Creek (to not mention the tornadoes of 27 Apr 2011), one has to wonder whether wind speeds in Jarrell or Bridge Creek were in fact in excess of 305 knots. Maybe those “absurd” estimates of peak tornado winds from the 1950s and ‘60s were not so absurd after all.