Significant Tornado Events

[Austin Dawg]

Also, off topic, but has anyone seen the trailer for 13 Minutes? Heard the film itself isn't that good, but that has got to be the most realistic CGI wedge tornado I have ever seen. Even has a collar cloud! Somebody really did their homework. Most Hollywood tornado scenes have that unrealistic, smoky-looking, overly textured appearance, when in reality, most tornadoes have more of a "2-D" look to them. As a result, less detail and texture actually makes it look more like the real deal. Whoever animated the movie clearly figured that out.
View attachment 10621

Here is one review. Most are mixed.


13 Minutes

 

[pohnpei]

Definitely high-end EF4 but I'm not so sure about EF5, I would need to see more structural damage first.

To be honest, I still thought the structure damage of Funing tornado was more impressive than its contextual damage. The tornados destoried dozens of the second floor of reinforced concrete buildings made by thick brick walls, especially in Lixin Village. Many of them were damaged through narrow side. Such damage was not that easy to find in past violent tornado cases while Funing had so many of them.
The one case I can find was one house from 2015 Mira tornado. The house was hit directly by tornado at its peak intensity (very close to the EF4 rating point) and had structure similarly with those houses in Funing that I mentioned above. But the degree of the damage was not even close.
I wouldn't casually judge whether Funing was EF4 or EF5 because It was quite an ambiguous question But the structure damage of Funing was really strong, much stronger than tornados like Czech Republic EF4 this year or Mira tornado 2015 at least.
Funing

 

[MNTornadoGuy]

To be honest, I still thought the structure damage of Funing tornado was more impressive than its contextual damage. The tornados destoried dozens of the second floor of reinforced concrete buildings made by thick brick walls, especially in Lixin Village. Many of them were damaged through narrow side. Such damage was not that easy to find in past violent tornado cases while Funing had so many of them.
The one case I can find was one house from 2015 Mira tornado. The house was hit directly by tornado at its peak intensity (very close to the EF4 rating point) and had structure similarly with those houses in Funing that I mentioned above. But the degree of the damage was not even close.
I wouldn't casually judge whether Funing was EF4 or EF5 because It was quite an ambiguous question But the structure damage of Funing was really strong, much stronger than tornados like Czech Republic EF4 this year or Mira tornado 2015 at least.View attachment 10654

I've heard rumors that Funing completely leveled or slabbed well-built brick homes or concrete-brick homes but I haven't seen any clear evidence of this being true so I'm skeptical.

 

[pohnpei]

I've heard rumors that Funing completely leveled or slabbed well-built brick homes or concrete-brick homes but I haven't seen any clear evidence of this being true so I'm skeptical.

These were tons of leveled brick houses in Funing but most of them was not reinforced. "Slabbed" can be a little controversial because those brick houses were completely different from residences in Amercia which they often fail when tornado pull the anchor system out of the foundation then carried away by winds.
I don't think tornado can "slab" a reinforced concrete residence clean from the foundation. At least I haven't seen one yet. The damage Funing did to those houses were already one of the strongest I have seen.

 

[Casuarina Head]

One of the most interesting tornadoes to me has always been the Teton/Yellowstone tornado on July 21, 1987. As far as I know it was the most remote and the highest-altitude violent tornado on record, and even though it didn't cause any damage to structures or property, the tree damage was unbelievable. According to the Wyoming Climate Atlas, nearly one million trees were snapped or uprooted, and literally thousands were completely debarked and had their branches removed. A number of these debarked trunks were plastered in mud and debris as well. Fujita apparently said that the tree damage was some of the worst he had ever seen, and compared it to the tree damage from the Guin and Tanner, AL tornadoes on 4/3/74 and the Smithfield, AL tornado on 4/4/77.

This is the only image of the damage path I was able to find. The most extreme tree damage seems to be in a narrow streak through the upper center of the photo, but the tornado itself was more than 1.5 miles wide.

Probably the biggest question mark out of this tornado is the fact that F3 to F4-level tree damage occurred at elevations of 9,000 feet and higher, with the highest peaks crossed by the tornado being at nearly 11,000 feet. The Wyoming Climate Atlas has stated that the winds needed to cause this kind of tree damage at higher altitudes is probably a fair bit higher than at lower altitudes where the air pressure is higher, and so the tornado's winds could be much stronger than official estimates. Honestly, the true damage potential of this tornado, if it had happened closer to sea level, will probably never be known.

Here are some close-ups from the July 1987 issue (pp. 8–9) of Storm Data:

Also, an interesting excerpt from p. 6 of the same issue:

The path averaged 1.5 miles in width, reached a maximum of 2.5 miles, and contained 15,000 acres of mostly mature lodgepole pines that were snapped, uprooted, or in some cases pulled out of the ground and carried a considerable distance by the tornado’s winds.

Apparently most of the vegetation consisted of lodgepole pine rather than Engelmann spruce.

 

[speedbump305]

hey y’all It has been a while since i’ve been in this threas and i am so happy to be back and talking about my favorite subject tornadoes and the damage they cause. the tornado i’m focusing on right now is the Lawrenceburg tornado of 1998. from what i’ve heard, it seemed to have produced remarkable damage, but i’ve seen very few images. Does anyone happen to have any images of its damage? ive looked and i can’t seem to find any resource

 

[TH2002]

hey y’all It has been a while since i’ve been in this threas and i am so happy to be back and talking about my favorite subject tornadoes and the damage they cause. the tornado i’m focusing on right now is the Lawrenceburg tornado of 1998. from what i’ve heard, it seemed to have produced remarkable damage, but i’ve seen very few images. Does anyone happen to have any images of its damage? ive looked and i can’t seem to find any resource

 

[CalebRoutt]

Speaking of F5s in Kentucky, I lived in Russell Springs for a few years when I was young. Long before my time, a localized but very intense outbreak on April 27, 1971 produced two violent tornadoes in the area - one of which Dr. Fujita rated F5. It's often called the Gosser Ridge tornado and it's covered briefly in one of Fujita's research papers. I've never seen a clear justification for the F5 rating, but it seems it was at least partially based on severe vegetation damage that remained consistent even as the tornado traversed very steep gorges (which is.. interesting?). It also destroyed a number of homes and caused considerable damage to the local Salem Elementary School, which happens to be where I attended 2nd-5th grade (I think).

Anywho, I bring this up because I found a video showing some of the damage. Nothing extraordinary, but some of it is definitely significant:

I helped do a book on that tornado. I did see complete and utter debarking of trees that would fit well in the EF5 category.

 

[MNTornadoGuy]

Does anyone have damage photos from the April 11, 1965 Radnor OH tornado, the Brunswick OH tornado, the Alma MI tornado, the Dewitt MI tornado, the South Wanatah IN tornado, the Keystone IN tornado, the Kalamazoo tornado or the Lebanon IN tornado?

 

[locomusic01]

I helped do a book on that tornado. I did see complete and utter debarking of trees that would fit well in the EF5 category.

That's interesting to know, thanks! It looked pretty intense from the little I've got on it, but I never really dug too deeply.

 

[locomusic01]

Does anyone have damage photos from the April 11, 1965 Radnor OH tornado, the Brunswick OH tornado, the Alma MI tornado, the Dewitt MI tornado, the South Wanatah IN tornado, the Keystone IN tornado, the Kalamazoo tornado or the Lebanon IN tornado?

I only have one photo from the Radnor F2 (or F3 per Grazulis) - some sort of tool shop or machine shed near Westfield, or at least part of it:

The Dewitt-Bennington F4:

 

[locomusic01]

The Wanatah-Kingsford Heights tornado from CR 1250 east of Wanatah:

The Lebanon-Sheridan F4+:

Almost positive I've got more from the Lebanon tornado - I may have even posted some in this thread - but they aren't in the folder for some reason. I'll dig around later and see if I can track them down.

 

[locomusic01]

Also, were you looking for photos specifically from Keystone, IN or from the tornado in general? I've got a ton of photos but most are from Berne, Linn Grove and Scott. I think there may be a few from around Willshire, OH as well. Pretty sure I've posted some here before but I'll sort through them and post in a bit.

Edit: Yeah, here are some of them - https://talkweather.com/threads/significant-tornado-events.1276/page-260#post-62979

 

[TH2002]

Here is the only photo I could find from the 2007 Macksville, KS tornado, from the same outbreak as Greensburg. According to the Storm Data entry this was a Chevy Blazer which was thrown 3/4 mile and ended up like this. A well constructed house was also swept off its foundation according to the same entry, but the tornado got slapped with an EF3 rating. Would love to find more photos from this thing.


edit: Also found this photo of a destroyed police car where Officer Robert Buckman lost his life. He was the sole fatality in this tornado.

 

[locomusic01]

Btw, I was thinking this morning: while I'm on the topic of Palm Sunday, let me know if y'all have good photos that haven't been posted here or on my blog, especially if you happen to know the source. I dunno what the future holds for my blog, but one thing I've been meaning to do for years is go back and fix my Palm Sunday article. I wrote it pretty early on before I had a clear idea what I wanted my articles to be and I've never really been happy with it. I've added little bits and pieces over the years but it deserves better.

And unfortunately we're getting far enough away from it now that the number of people who lived through it is dwindling, so.. probably gonna have to at least do the research bit fairly soon.

(..He says casually, ordering up another elephant before he's even finished chewing through the one on his plate.)

 

[locomusic01]

hey y’all It has been a while since i’ve been in this threas and i am so happy to be back and talking about my favorite subject tornadoes and the damage they cause. the tornado i’m focusing on right now is the Lawrenceburg tornado of 1998. from what i’ve heard, it seemed to have produced remarkable damage, but i’ve seen very few images. Does anyone happen to have any images of its damage? ive looked and i can’t seem to find any resource

Unfortunately, when a tornado is known as "The Forgotten F5," it pretty much tells you what you need to know. There's not a whole lot out there, at least publicly. Here's some more I've put in an imgur album so it doesn't clutter things up too much. Should be able to click them to see full-size:



Speaking of which, I found a couple of people who were impacted by this tornado several months ago. They said they had photos somewhere, but naturally they never got back to me and I forgot about it until now. I don't really have time to follow up at the moment, but if I can remember who they were/find them I'd be happy to pass the info along if someone's interested.

 

[Juliett Bravo Kilo]

Unfortunately, when a tornado is known as "The Forgotten F5," it pretty much tells you what you need to know. There's not a whole lot out there, at least publicly. Here's some more I've put in an imgur album so it doesn't clutter things up too much. Should be able to click them to see full-size:



Speaking of which, I found a couple of people who were impacted by this tornado several months ago. They said they had photos somewhere, but naturally they never got back to me and I forgot about it until now. I don't really have time to follow up at the moment, but if I can remember who they were/find them I'd be happy to pass the info along if someone's interested.

Interesting little note, this photograph is of a seperate F4, the first of two in the family (the middle tornado was the F5, the 1st and 3rd were F4s), it apparently downed tens of thousands of trees in a mile-wide swath.




Source:

April 16, 1998 Tornado Outbreak

 

[MNTornadoGuy]

Macksville

 

[MNTornadoGuy]

Btw, I was thinking this morning: while I'm on the topic of Palm Sunday, let me know if y'all have good photos that haven't been posted here or on my blog, especially if you happen to know the source. I dunno what the future holds for my blog, but one thing I've been meaning to do for years is go back and fix my Palm Sunday article. I wrote it pretty early on before I had a clear idea what I wanted my articles to be and I've never really been happy with it. I've added little bits and pieces over the years but it deserves better.

And unfortunately we're getting far enough away from it now that the number of people who lived through it is dwindling, so.. probably gonna have to at least do the research bit fairly soon.

(..He says casually, ordering up another elephant before he's even finished chewing through the one on his plate.)

Palm Sunday is one of the most fascinating outbreaks of the 20th century as it is one of the deadliest and most violent outbreaks of that era. Also do you believe the Coldwater Lake tornado was a possible F5?

 

[locomusic01]

Interesting little note, this photograph is of a seperate F4, the first of two in the family (the middle tornado was the F5, the 1st and 3rd were F4s), it apparently downed tens of thousands of trees in a mile-wide swath.

Thanks, I've seen it attributed to both but I'm not sure exactly where it was taken. Seeing if I could track down Carrie Kinslow has always been on my "maybe some day" list lol. Also, I was looking thru my folder for this event and found a random shot from the F3 that struck near Tidwell, TN:

Palm Sunday is one of the most fascinating outbreaks of the 20th century as it is one of the deadliest and most violent outbreaks of that era. Also do you believe the Coldwater Lake tornado was a possible F5?

It's not as egregious as a couple of the other would-be F5s, but you could make a pretty good case. It did some truly phenomenal things. It's one (or two if you count both, I guess) of at least a half-dozen tornadoes that very likely would've earned F5 ratings if they'd occurred at other times and/or in other places. I still can't say that I really understand why so many of the Palm Sunday tornadoes ended up so clearly underrated.