Significant Tornado Events

[Casuarina Head]

The Cayce–Dawson Springs–Bremen KY and Buckeye AR tornadoes were arguably at least as powerful as the Smithville MS EF5, if not more so.

 

[TH2002]

The Cayce–Dawson Springs–Bremen KY and Buckeye AR tornadoes were arguably at least as powerful as the Smithville MS EF5, if not more so.

Not sure I'd say more so, but probably very close.

 

[CheeselandSkies]

As I mentioned in the thread about last week's outbreak, the Mayfield etc tornado has exceeded the 149.25-mile April 2010 Louisiana-Mississippi tornado as the longest-tracked tornado in the NEXRAD era.

So much was made in the media starting immediately after the event that it may have been a "record-breaking quad-state tornado," even though it was pretty clear to those of us watching on radar that it likely lifted/cycled between Samburg and Woodland Mills, TN (ignoring the fact that the 1925 Tri-State event also likely included at least one such handoff, lost in the absence of eyewitnesses, radar, and damage surveys of the time).

Even so, very-long-track (in my opinion, 110 miles or more) tornadoes are pretty rare and exceptional. The fact that, just a year and three days before Hackleburg (132 miles officially, if you count the cycle/break that Tornado Talk does it actually doesn't meet my criteria!), there was a tornado with an even longer track is pretty insane to me. That and the fact that on the same day as Hackleburg, there were two other tornadoes with path lengths over 120 miles (Cordova, 127.8 miles and Raleigh, MS-Uniontown, AL, 122 miles).

Another notable one is the Arkansas tornado from Super Tuesday, 2008 (also 122 miles).

Any other relatively recent ones in this category I'm missing? Do you all believe that these official path lengths are accurate, or were there likely cycles/breaks that the survey missed as in Tornado Talk's opinion with Hackleburg?

I'm not even going to get into comparative violence, because it's safe to assume that all of these tornadoes would have been capable of causing, if not the apparently mythical "EF5 damage," at least classical F5 damage had they encountered an anchor-bolted frame house at peak intensity.

At about the 22:30 mark in his video about last Friday, Reed Timmer goes on an interesting tangent about how (at least in his opinion), fast storm motions may increase the likelihood of long-track tornadoes not only by simply enabling the storm to cover more distance in a given amount of time on the ground, but by actually inhibiting the RFD occlusion process that normally causes supercells to cycle.

 

[A Guy]

At about the 22:30 mark in his video about last Friday, Reed Timmer goes on an interesting tangent about how (at least in his opinion), fast storm motions may increase the likelihood of long-track tornadoes not only by simply enabling the storm to cover more distance in a given amount of time on the ground, but by actually inhibiting the RFD occlusion process that normally causes supercells to cycle.

Interesting theory, though seems like a bit of a broad brush and IMO that it's more likely that conditions that produce faster moving storms are also often conditions that allow long duration storms.

Here's a quick chart of all violent plus a few long tracked non-violent tornadoes, from Storm Data since 1990 (plus a few non US), the path length and duration data is quite a bit more dodgy before that. I think the sample would be a bit skewed by not including more weaker tornadoes, but putting the data together is a really big task.




Seems there might be a bit of a sweet spot between 40 and 60 miles per hour. For what it's worth the storms last Friday were Mayfield: 55.8 mph (178 minutes for 165.65 miles), Dresden 59.4 mph (122.7 miles, 124 minutes) and Monette 54.7 mph (89 minutes for 80.3 miles).

Interestingly, the longest duration prior to last Friday was not the Yazoo City tornado, but the Raleigh-Uniontown tornado, which lasted 173 minutes compared to 164 for Yazoo City, but was significantly slower moving.

 

[buckeye05]

Nothing all that crazy, but I noticed some very intense tree damage in Rushton Drive area of Beavercreek while driving around tonight. Thought it looked pretty eerie and had to get a pic. This is the area where the most intense damage from the EF3 occurred back in 2019. This neighborhood used to be heavily wooded, but it’s now totally deforested. One cool thing though, being on a hill with 90% of the trees gone, there’s now a spectacular nighttime panorama view of Dayton from this location. It’s gonna be a very long time until this area even begins to look how it used to.

 

[Casuarina Head]

Does anyone have high-resolution images of the two “official” F5s in the month of December on record: Vicksburg MS ’53 and Sunfield IL ’57?

 

[MNTornadoGuy]

Does anyone have high-resolution images of the two “official” F5s in the month of December on record: Vicksburg MS ’53 and Sunfield IL ’57?

1957 Sunfield IL:

1953 Vicksburg MS:

 

[MNTornadoGuy]

Most violent tornado outbreaks by month:
1/5/1946:

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2/5/2008:

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3/21/1952:

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4/3/1974:

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5/31/1985:

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6/2/1990:

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7/3/1907:

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8/8/1924:

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9/21/1894:

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10/4/2013:

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11/21-22/1992:

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12/18/1957:

 

[tornado examiner]

yep

 

[pohnpei]

The 2015 Rowlett-Garland tornado was extremely violent. A three story apartment building and large storage facility were completely leveled and partially swept clean, large homes were obliterated, grass was scoured from the ground, and vehicles thrown from the George Bush Turnpike (where most of the fatalities occurred) were purportedly recovered mangled beyond recognition and caked in mud.
View attachment 11092
View attachment 11094
View attachment 11095

View attachment 11096

The apartment damage of Rowlett was strong but It was not leveled Imo. Slabs in pic two was likely underconstructed at that time.

 

[TH2002]

The apartment damage of Rowlett was strong but It was not leveled Imo. Slabs in pic two was likely underconstructed at that time.
View attachment 11161View attachment 11162

The destroyed building in the first photo I posted was a small apartment building (might have been two stories however, not sure if it was three).

That thought did cross my mind about the second photo of the slabs, as all of the debris seems to be 2x4's with nothing else, and the presence of apparently unfinished slabs nearby.

 

[TH2002]

Intense damage from the 2011 Tuscaloosa tornado in the Pleasant Grove area.

 

[locomusic01]

I've been telling people that Barrie was clearly stronger than an F4, but it turns out I was actually underselling it! We're approaching F8 or F9 territory here.

 

[locomusic01]

Not that we needed more examples of how clueless people are when it comes to documenting tornado damage, but this one is especially frustrating to me. One of several virtually unknown 5/31/85 tornadoes was an F3 that struck Wellington County in Southern Ontario (particularly the Alma, Cumnock and Belwood areas). I was surprised to hear/read from multiple sources that it apparently swept away a couple of homes early in the path, leaving nothing but "concrete foundations with exposed plumbing." It also threw a car a couple hundred yards from one of the driveways and crushed it.

Obviously that was pretty intriguing, so I've searched high and low for photos. I finally found a handful of them from the area, including a few that were taken on one of the properties in question. Surely anyone would know enough to snap at least one or two pictures of such impressive destruction, right?

Nope — it's trees.

I mean.. why?! And not even the large hardwood trees that newspaper accounts say were snapped off and/or stripped. It's just the kind of random stuff you might see after a pretty good windstorm. I did eventually find some better pictures from this tornado that actually show structural damage (what a concept!), and some of it is fairly strong, but nothing from this specific area where the tornado seems to have briefly peaked.

 

[TH2002]

I've been telling people that Barrie was clearly stronger than an F4, but it turns out I was actually underselling it! We're approaching F8 or F9 territory here.

The Bridge Creek-Moore 1999 tornado must have had sustained winds somewhere in the 170mph-800mph range.

 

[locomusic01]

The Bridge Creek-Moore 1999 tornado must have had sustained winds somewhere in the 170mph-800mph range.

"Definitely a mid-range EF4."
- PAH

 

[Shakespeare 2016]

"Definitely a mid-range EF4."
- PAH

Is that what they said?

 

[Shakespeare 2016]

The Bridge Creek-Moore 1999 tornado must have had sustained winds somewhere in the 170mph-800mph range.

Why is there such a big desire to not rate tornadoes an EF5? Are they trying to break some sort of record or something?

 

[Casuarina Head]

1957 Sunfield IL:

Do you have any sharper, closer views of the damage in Sunfield? This F5 is one of the most poorly documented on record, so more detailed imagery is needed.

 

[Juliett Bravo Kilo]

"Definitely a mid-range EF4."
- PAH

At least back they had the decency to call it a "low-end F5" lol.