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Perhaps intense inflow or suction vortices on the edge of the tornado?Something newly discovered founding about Chapman's railway damage, nothing spectacularly new anyway.
I recheck this railway damage photo today and found It had been shoto from north to south, rather than south to north that I used to thought, which means the railway was distorted opposite to the direction of the tornado. I always thought that tornado pushed the railway forward this place but It seems that I was wrong. So If these conclusion are right, how the hell It can be done? There was simply no debris west of the railway or right side of the second pic so no way debris hitting theory.
The only guess here was tornado sucked the railway towards the tornado when It went really close due to pressure gradient, which was more ridiculous to think than the previous idea of tornado pushed the railway forward or maybe.....Ok, to be honest, I literally have no idea how the hell It can be done!
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I always had a feeling Tescott was stronger than EF3. I know it is difficult to rate tornadoes that don't hit much, but this seems like confirmation to me it was capable of causing violent damage.Ground scouring from the 2018 Tescott tornado
What is the red arrow pointing out in the third photo?Ground scouring from the 2018 Tescott tornado
Incredible scouring there from Tescott, KS. I think we all had a hunch that it was stronger than EF3, and the similarities to Lawrenceburg, TN and Cordova, AL are undeniable. May I ask where you found them? I’d love to read whatever study or paper they were associated with (if they were).
The arrow is pointing to a white marker for reference. Also the gouges were 6-10 cm deep.What is the red arrow pointing out in the third photo?
I would rate that ground scouring as high-end EF4!What is the red arrow pointing out in the third photo?
Occasionally with multivortex tornadoes you can see little visible eruptions of dirt that seem to correspond with this sort of patchy scouring. There are several videos that show it pretty clearly (although my brain's toast and I can't think of any at the moment) and I've heard descriptions of the same sort of phenomenon with a few different tornadoes (Stecker, OK 5/3/99, Saegertown, PA & Albion, PA 5/31/85 and Sheridan, IN 4/11/65 come to mind). I'm very much not an expert in fluid dynamics, but this kind of thing seems pretty much in keeping with the papers I've read on the mechanics of vortex breakdown/suction vortices. It's pretty damn cool.On another note, it is interesting how like Lawrenceburg '98 and Cordova '11 Tescott seems to have caused its ground scouring in "bursts" of intensity rather than one continuous path. It is quite bizzare:
Which tornado was this?So here's something neat. I talked to a guy who was driving north on Rt. 18 toward Albion when he saw the tornado approaching from the southwest. He stopped at the crest of a hill overlooking town and had a great view of the whole event as it unfolded. He said that the tornado was pretty large and seemed to be bookin' along sort of toward the east or east-northeast when it suddenly slowed down dramatically, quickly shrank in size, did a little loop to the north and then continued on a curving path into town. "It stopped and wobbled around like a drunk for a minute" is how he put it.
Well, turns out you can sort of see where it happened in some of the aerial shots (the tree damage pattern just below center):
It's also pretty amazing how quickly the path narrowed. A little over half a mile to the southeast of here (toward the bottom left) is where the demolished farms were that I posted previously. The tornado was a quarter-mile wide there and more like half a mile wide a bit before that, but as you can see it shrinks to ~200 yards after the little loop/wobble/whatever you wanna call it. Eventually it ended up expanding to a quarter-mile again near Cranesville.
It almost looks like it was starting to occlude but then it just sort of.. kept on going lol
The 5/31/85 Albion, PA F4.Which tornado was this?
So here's something neat. I talked to a guy who was driving north on Rt. 18 toward Albion when he saw the tornado approaching from the southwest. He stopped at the crest of a hill overlooking town and had a great view of the whole event as it unfolded. He said that the tornado was pretty large and seemed to be bookin' along sort of toward the east or east-northeast when it suddenly slowed down dramatically, quickly shrank in size, did a little loop to the north and then continued on a curving path into town. "It stopped and wobbled around like a drunk for a minute" is how he put it.
Well, turns out you can sort of see where it happened in some of the aerial shots (the tree damage pattern just below center):
It's also pretty amazing how quickly the path narrowed. A little over half a mile to the southeast of here (toward the bottom left) is where the demolished farms were that I posted previously. The tornado was a quarter-mile wide there and more like half a mile wide a bit before that, but as you can see it shrinks to ~200 yards after the little loop/wobble/whatever you wanna call it. Eventually it ended up expanding to a quarter-mile again near Cranesville.
It almost looks like it was starting to occlude but then it just sort of.. kept on going lol
Bridge Creek-Moore 1999 did something similar; it rapidly weakened to F2 then within a mile or so quickly regained F4 intensity and managed to keep on going.Sounds kind of like what the afternoon Cordova tornado of 4/27 did as it approached Corridor X (now I-22) and the town proper. When on-air with ABC 33/40, Tim Coleman and Brian Peters described some erratic movement along with rapid shrinking and re-expanding. The reflectivity debris signature, which had been just as impressive as the Tuscaloosa-Birmingham one would eventually be over northern Tuscaloosa County and southeastern Fayette County (despite only EF1-EF2 damage being noted here, as it missed most towns and substantial structures until Cordova proper, and wouldn't actually be rated EF4 until after Cordova) also appeared to weaken briefly during this time.
Yeah, kinda similar. Just north of Newcastle it weakened/shrank and sort of recurved while crossing the Canadian River before very rapidly exploding into an F5 again.Bridge Creek-Moore 1999 did something similar; it rapidly weakened to F2 then within a mile or so quickly regained F4 intensity and managed to keep on going.