Strongest tornadoes on record

[Ilka]

Hi, everybody.
My name is Ilya (Илья), I'm from Krasnoyarsk, Siberia (which is in Russia) and I'm obsessed with twisters. The first time I saw a tornado on TV I knew it was a love at first sight. I was 10 yo or so. Than was 1996 Twister movie...
Unfortunately, Russia and Siberia especially is not a tornado country. The most impressive thing for me was a supercell couple years ago, one and only on my memory. So... I do what I call "couch stormchasing" and dreaming of real stormchasing tour on Plains someday.
I've raead a lot of articles about US tornadoes, seen lot of pictures and videos. So these are my top... strongest tornadoes as I see it from the other side of the globe.

1. Jarrell, TX.
This twister completely blew my mind. Althou it occured pretty long ago, I've learned about it relatively recently. Pictures of total destruction, eyewitness accounts and articles of specialists made an indelible impression on me. I never thought that the wind is capable of doing such vicious but at the same time bewithching things. I am very sorry for all those people, who lost their lives in Jarrell nightmare, but I can't stop thinking of that tornado as a wonder of nature.

2. Moore, OK, 1999.
This record-breaking twister was my "favourite" before Jarrell. Especially because of this picture

"What?! No way!" - that was the thirst thing on my mind when I saw it. When I've learned about "highest wind speed ever", I've done some primitive math. I knew that wind force and wind speed are in quadratic dependence. So if 50 m/s wind is capable of making an avarage person airborn, than 500 kph wind can make fly a "person" made of steel! That's so impressive! And of course that "F6" thing also plays a role.

3. El-Reno, OK, 2013
The second highes mesured wind speed. The widest tornado ever recorded. Professinal stormchasers died. That means something. What if this twister occured not in rural area? Aftermath could be horrible.

PS sorry for my english, I could have been expressed my thoughts better if I spoke russian )

 

[warneagle]

Ilya, it would be incredible if you could say something about the 1984 Soviet Union outbreak. It has an almost mythical status in the U.S. because the information that's available in the West about it is pretty minimal, for obvious reasons. If you have some knowledge of it that's based on Russian sources that haven't been translated into English or anything like that I'm sure I can speak for all of us and say that we'd love to hear it.

I've always wanted to learn Russian, but Spanish, German, and Romanian in school got in the way and if I try anything else it's probably going to be Polish for work reasons.

 

[Winds of spring]

Hi, everybody.
My name is Ilya (Илья), I'm from Krasnoyarsk, Siberia (which is in Russia) and I'm obsessed with twisters. The first time I saw a tornado on TV I knew it was a love at first sight. I was 10 yo or so. Than was 1996 Twister movie...
Unfortunately, Russia and Siberia especially is not a tornado country. The most impressive thing for me was a supercell couple years ago, one and only on my memory. So... I do what I call "couch stormchasing" and dreaming of real stormchasing tour on Plains someday.
I've raead a lot of articles about US tornadoes, seen lot of pictures and videos. So these are my top... strongest tornadoes as I see it from the other side of the globe.

1. Jarrell, TX.
This twister completely blew my mind. Althou it occured pretty long ago, I've learned about it relatively recently. Pictures of total destruction, eyewitness accounts and articles of specialists made an indelible impression on me. I never thought that the wind is capable of doing such vicious but at the same time bewithching things. I am very sorry for all those people, who lost their lives in Jarrell nightmare, but I can't stop thinking of that tornado as a wonder of nature.

2. Moore, OK, 1999.
This record-breaking twister was my "favourite" before Jarrell. Especially because of this picture

"What?! No way!" - that was the thirst thing on my mind when I saw it. When I've learned about "highest wind speed ever", I've done some primitive math. I knew that wind force and wind speed are in quadratic dependence. So if 50 m/s wind is capable of making an avarage person airborn, than 500 kph wind can make fly a "person" made of steel! That's so impressive! And of course that "F6" thing also plays a role.

3. El-Reno, OK, 2013
The second highes mesured wind speed. The widest tornado ever recorded. Professinal stormchasers died. That means something. What if this twister occured not in rural area? Aftermath could be horrible.

PS sorry for my english, I could have been expressed my thoughts better if I spoke russian )

 

[Winds of spring]

Probably not a good idea to use recorded wind speeds as a barometer since it very rare to get lucky enough to have Doppler radar nearby. Chances are good that a lot of tornadoes may have had as high or higher wind speeds but no radar nearby to measure it.

As warneagle said, it would be cool if you could post some pictures involving the 1984 outbreak in Russia.

 

[DDM]

I think it's a real interesting discussion that could be rehashed over and over because there are so many different ways of looking at it. Since no two tornadoes are created equal, it's hard to for me to call the tornado that did the most damage the strongest. In all likelihood, the tornado with the most damaging potential probably took place over a field somewhere.

I've still never seen a tornado more intimidating than Andover. The motion was just incredible at times. It almost looked to be rotating at a 45 degree angle. Jarrell and Tuscaloosa were quite similar in their appearance.



Starting at about 4 minutes in is some of the most frightening tornado footage I've ever seen. The zoom in on the houses with the tornado appearing almost on top of it (in likelihood a good distance away) is enough to give me chills.

However, the damage was much less severe than a number of other F/EF5s. It produced some incredible wind rowing, but most of the tornado's peak damage took place over a mobile home park, which aren't exactly known for their superior construction.

Spoiler: andover damage photos

If we're talking straight up damage, it's Jarrell for me hands down. "Wiped off the face of the Earth" comes to mind. Everything came together perfectly to create a tornado that was virtually unsurvivable above ground. The size of the tornado, the slow forward speed, the peak strength right over the town... it's just a worst case scenario.

One that I feel is pretty underrated is Parkersburg. I recall a basement wall being partially collapsed and there are some pictures out there of really finely granulated debris.

Hackleburg is the most impressive to me in terms of sustained damage. It was on the ground for a long time and produced high end damage over a large area.

 

[WIL9287]

Another tornado which doesn't get a lot of attention but was extremely violent (probably on the level of Bridge Creek) was the 5/31/1985 Niles/Wheatland tornado, which swept away large two-story, anchor-bolted houses, leveled a shopping center and truck plant, twisted steel girders like wet noodles and pushed them off the foundations, tossed 75,000 gallon oil tanks hundreds of feet and left many of them crushed and crumpled, scoured pavement from a parking lot, and wedged sections of sheet metal roofing and receipts beneath the edges of the scoured sections.

I have the book called "Tornado Watch 211" if I remember correctly (left the book at home, and I'm away at school), In Wheatland one body was torn apart, and another person was de-scalped "so deeply" that the person didn't even bleed. That is another example that shows that this was very violent. Only a few other violent tornadoes have "torn apart" people, the couple that come to my mind are Jarrell and Hackelburg. Also in “Significant Tornadoes” Grazulis called the Niles/Wheatland tornado a “maxi-tornado” and only a few other tornadoes such Andover and Moore (1999) have been called “maxi-tornadoes” by Grazulis.

 

[Casuarina Head]

Also in “Significant Tornadoes” Grazulis called the Niles/Wheatland tornado a “maxi-tornado” and only a few other tornadoes such Andover and Moore (1999) have been called “maxi-tornadoes” by Grazulis.

Do you mind citing the sources for Andover and Moore being called “maxi-tornadoes” as well? I have both volumes of Significant Tornadoes (vol. I from 1680–1991, vol. II from 1992–1995) as well as The Tornado, and I have also viewed the F5-F6 supplement, and nowhere in any of these did I find a tornado other than Wheatland being referred to as a “maxi-tornado.” Where does Thomas P. Grazulis refer to Andover and/or Moore as “maxi-tornadoes” as well? Thank you in advance!

 

[Steel Central]

Just a crude personal analysis of my top 10 - Might not include some easily deserving historic tornadoes at the moment

1. Smithville, MS 2011 - I've found many of the damage details from Jarrell, Bridge Creek, etc. in this event, the **actual** uprooted waste pipe, manhole cover, missing vehicles pipes & semi tractor, entire trees simply gone, the absolutely killed treeline, buckled foundation, zapped anchor bolts, list goes on. Theres photo evidence of it all on TornadoTalk's article. And then you consider the EF5 core only had what... a couple seconds or less to do that to any given location in Smithville... I can't even picture that in my mind. "the impossible tornado", i call it.
2. Bridge Creek, OK 1999 - Perfect debarking, incredible vehicle damage, and of course the set record. Above El Reno because in light of more recent uploads, it does appear to be moving a bit faster than most assume. But still not even close to Smithville's interstate speeds.
3. El Reno, OK 2011 - Honestly I see it as equal to Bridge Creek. Absolutely incredible feats of damage to boost, like the oil rig. Only thing is it feels a tad slower moving & of course the confirmed windspeeds are a bit lower. Not that it's a certain deal because of those but I don't think putting it above is appropriate, so uhhh... tie i guess?
4. Loyal Valley, TX 1999 - This, regardless of any possible lingering, did some seriously intense things to the forestry it hit. Mesquite trees should be a lot more durable and it completely ignored that factor, which considering how literally deep the specifics of that goes, it boosts this one up pretty high
5. Hackleburg, AL 2011 - Forward speeds were absolutely terrifying considering the many instances where it damaged concrete/pavement as if it were simply really strong subflooring. Especially the storm shelters, like how do you even take those things up while going that fast?
6. Andover, KS 1991 - Never seen a straighter wind-rowwing line in any other tornado, and for it's movement speed did some nasty damage. Of course boosted by the many angles of upward winds absolutely zooming.
7. Moore, OK 2013 - Kinda exacerbated by suburban damage... except for the fact that wasn't happening when it did the most extreme stuff.
8. Jarrell, TX 1997 - Yes its low ik. Refer to point below. And honestly looking through the detail of photos, it really wasn't as impressive as the complete wipeout that definitely did happen suggests. Lots of things still there that shouldn't in the worst areas but its still clearly legendary wipeout
9. New Richmond, WI 1899 - Descriptions and photographed damage are purely brutal, especially the "bodies in baskets" and the famous tree damage photo.
10. Stanton, NE 2014 - Might seem like an odd choice but I do take one chasers word for the ground shaking from 2 miles away, don't remember who it was though. Of course there was a serious lack of anything at the one place it hit, and the truck damage.... Reminded me of Bridge Creek in an instant. Nothing out there either so it's all the tornado and the couple objects to themselves

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Just a couple things to note:
-Still considering Bakersfield Valley among other historic, just not as impressed by the "extreme" rolling of tanks.
-I believe EF3s can do EF5 damage if slow enough. You do have to remember the 2 ratings are only 50-ish MPH apart. So if Jarrell is doing damage you expect from a 320+ range tornado, depending on how actually slow your talking that can bring it down to what is still 280-300 range. Idk why people think Grazulis said an F3 can do Maxi-Tornado damage when all he really referred to is the baseline of the 5.
-as i said, a lot of them left out that i either forgot the details of or am too tired atm to think out

 

[Sawmaster]

I can't really make a conclusive list in ranking, but the more I know the more I believe that Smithville ranks #1 for strength, doing things in the blink of an eye which other tornadoes took many seconds to do, and a wide range of things too. Guin might be equal or higher but we have less documentation to go on. Jarrell as the most destructive tornado ever, mostly because it just sat there grinding and grinding and grinding again. Meanest overall has to be Hackleburg with very high intensity along a very long and very rapid path. Though mostly rural with weak structures involved, it equals or eclipses Tri-Statre which I feel was a family. Somewhere among all these is Bridge Creek, possibly having the highest windspeeds yet somehow not doing quite the damage of Smithville but close.

Beyond this there are several good candidates ranking right up there but it gets hard to sort them out. Pampa and Katie/Wynewood have excellent impressive clear video of much large debris being lofted at the same time, the entire house lifted intact at Elle/Manitoba is jaw-dropping to watch, Joplin likely had the worst urban impact in modern times and there's no doubt that the Anderson Hills subdivision in Harvest AL is the strongest tornado magnet around. The one absolute here is that every tornado is different and specific types of damage aren't found in all or even many of them which makes direct comparisons tough.

 

[catatonia]

I have the book called "Tornado Watch 211" if I remember correctly (left the book at home, and I'm away at school), In Wheatland one body was torn apart, and another person was de-scalped "so deeply" that the person didn't even bleed. That is another example that shows that this was very violent. Only a few other violent tornadoes have "torn apart" people, the couple that come to my mind are Jarrell and Hackelburg. Also in “Significant Tornadoes” Grazulis called the Niles/Wheatland tornado a “maxi-tornado” and only a few other tornadoes such Andover and Moore (1999) have been called “maxi-tornadoes” by Grazulis.

I remember reading ST where Grazulis called Snyder OK (1905) "exceptionally violent." There was also a website that made a very good case for Sherman TX (1896) being among the most violent in history. Then there's Udall, not so much the strength (though undoubtedly it was one of the strongest in history) but the idea that something came out of the stormy Kansas sky that night and basically obliterated an entire town and killed or injured half its population. That's Lovecraftian.

 

[Casuarina Head]

Maybe we should rank “most violent” tornadoes by specific instances of DIs. That is better than a general list.