Ensō Posted June 19, 2014 Share Posted June 19, 2014 On the subject of the most prolific tornado-producing supercells, my money is on supercell "L" from the Palm Sunday outbreak. F4 Cambria - Moran, IN F4 Russiaville - Kokomo - Greentown, IN F4 Keystone - Wilshire, OH F4 Cairo - Bluffton, OH F4 Rockaway, OH F5 Pittsfield - Strongsville, OH F3 Brunswick, OH And in my opinion the damage in and around the Greentown area may have been F5 as well. About a dozen homes were swept cleanly away, there was intense wind rowing and pronounced scouring in the yards of several homes, trees were stripped bare and reportedly left as "small stumps," and vehicles were thrown up to 200 yards. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thundersnow12 Posted June 19, 2014 Share Posted June 19, 2014 BTW, if Pilger is upgraded, it will be the first official June F5 tornado since the Chandler MN tornado on...wait for it...16 June 1992. It would be 22 years to the day. Think it will be? Both Victor and I are leaning yes from what we've seen. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tornadotony Posted June 19, 2014 Share Posted June 19, 2014 Think it will be? Both Victor and I are leaning yes from what we've seen. I hate making those guesses publicly based solely off of pictures, but it's going to be awfully, awfully close. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ground Scouring Posted June 19, 2014 Share Posted June 19, 2014 The last point marked F4 for the Pilger tornado, near the very end of its path, shows some impressive damage with a wind speed of 182 mph. Out of all the images (DAT and otherwise) I've seen, this one, in addition to that of the Pilger church, seems to indicate a structure that has been better built/bolted than the others. If the Pilger tornado is rated EF5, it will be the first in NE since Bradshaw on 05/05/1964. ...the twin tornadoes form an "X" near "X Road".... Wow... First crop circles, now X marking the spot. What's next? Some of the aerials from the Facebook link show impressive wind-rowing and ground scouring: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
andyhb Posted June 19, 2014 Author Share Posted June 19, 2014 Awesome video of the suction vortices in the Alpena tornado yesterday. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E20uLPrv5uA Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thunder Road Posted June 19, 2014 Share Posted June 19, 2014 Coleridge EF3 for now NOUS43 KOAX 192054PNSOAXIAZ043-055-056-069-079-080-090-091-NEZ011-012-015>018-030>034-042>045-050>053-065>068-078-088>093-200900-PUBLIC INFORMATION STATEMENTNATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE OMAHA/VALLEY NE354 PM CDT THU JUN 19 2014...NWS DAMAGE SURVEY FOR JUNE 17, 2014 NEAR COLERIDGE NEBRASKA....OVERVIEW...A SUPERCELL THUNDERSTORM DEVELOPED OVER CENTRAL CEDAR COUNTYDURING THE LATE AFTERNOON HOURS OF JUNE 17TH. THIS STORM WASNEARLY STATIONARY OR MOVED SLOWLY SOUTHEAST OVER THE NEXT 4 HOURSPRODUCING LARGE HAIL...FLOODING AND TORNADOES. THE GROUND SURVEYOF THE EVENT HAS BEEN COMPLETED...AND WILL BE USED IN CONJUNCTIONWITH RADAR DATA...TORNADO VIDEO...AND AERIAL PHOTOGRAPHY TODETERMINE THE ACTUAL NUMBER OF TORNADOES DURING THE EVENT. DUE TOTHE COMPLEX NATURE OF THE EVENT THIS PROCESS WILL TAKE SEVERALDAYS TO COMPLETE. THIS INFORMATION STATEMENT DESCRIBES THESTRONGEST DAMAGE OBSERVED DURING THE GROUND SURVEY OF THE AREA.MORE DETAILED INFORMATION INCLUDING TIMES...TRACKS AND NUMBER OFTORNADOES WILL FOLLOW IN THE COMING DAYS..COLERIDGE TORNADO...RATING: EF-3PATHY LENGTH /STATUTE/: TBDPATH WIDTH /MAXIMUM/: TBDSTART DATE: JUNE 17, 2014START TIME: TBDEND DATE: JUNE 17, 2014END TIME: TBDEF SCALE: THE ENHANCED FUJITA SCALE CLASSIFIES TORNADOES INTO THEFOLLOWING CATEGORIES.EF0...WEAK......65 TO 85 MPHEF1...WEAK......86 TO 110 MPHEF2...STRONG....111 TO 135 MPHEF3...STRONG....136 TO 165 MPHEF4...VIOLENT...166 TO 200 MPHEF5...VIOLENT...>200 MPHNOTE:THE INFORMATION IN THIS STATEMENT IS PRELIMINARY AND SUBJECT TOCHANGE PENDING FINAL REVIEW OF THE EVENT AND PUBLICATION IN NWSSTORM DATA.$ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
andyhb Posted June 19, 2014 Author Share Posted June 19, 2014 This damage NNE of Coleridge is quite impressive. http://services.dat.noaa.gov/arcgis/rest/services/DamageAssessmentToolkit/DamageFlexViewer/MapServer/0/513949/attachments/320904 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
andyhb Posted June 19, 2014 Author Share Posted June 19, 2014 The last point marked F4 for the Pilger tornado, near the very end of its path, shows some impressive damage with a wind speed of 182 mph. Out of all the images (DAT and otherwise) I've seen, this one, in addition to that of the Pilger church, seems to indicate a structure that has been better built/bolted than the others. If the Pilger tornado is rated EF5, it will be the first in NE since Bradshaw on 05/05/1964. There's a comment in the kml file that says this house was not properly anchored. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wxtrackercody Posted June 19, 2014 Share Posted June 19, 2014 This damage NNE of Coleridge is quite impressive. http://services.dat.noaa.gov/arcgis/rest/services/DamageAssessmentToolkit/DamageFlexViewer/MapServer/0/513949/attachments/320904 There's a discrepancy between the EF rating and the estimated winds for that point. It says EF3 but lists estimated winds of 200 mph. It sure looks like the latter from a glance, but obviously that would depend on the construction. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thewxmann Posted June 19, 2014 Share Posted June 19, 2014 Think it will be? Both Victor and I are leaning yes from what we've seen. Idk... if the Vilonia tornado did not get an EF5 rating, I highly doubt the Pilger tornado would get one. They're both on a similar level. I will say though, if it does, it will be because of the damage shown in Ground Scouring's aerials a few posts back. The other images are impressive but would not pass today's extremely stringent EF5 standards. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
andyhb Posted June 19, 2014 Author Share Posted June 19, 2014 Idk... if the Vilonia tornado did not get an EF5 rating, I highly doubt the Pilger tornado would get one. They're both on a similar level. I will say though, if it does, it will be because of the damage shown in Ground Scouring's aerials a few posts back. The other images are impressive but would not pass today's extremely stringent EF5 standards. Or the damage to the church... It has already been established that continuity is not exactly the easiest thing to find between tornado damage surveys. A "similar level" between the Pilger and Vilonia tornadoes could easily mean high end EF4 to "low end" EF5 (although in my mind there's no such thing as a low end EF5 since they are incredibly destructive events in every case). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thewxmann Posted June 19, 2014 Share Posted June 19, 2014 Or the damage to the church... It has already been established that continuity is not exactly the easiest thing to find between tornado damage surveys. The church is borderline. I would probably need an aerial to be more confident. The debris wasn't very granulated from what I recall. I would put that damage on a similar level to Chickasha/Goldsby on 5/24/11 (high-end EF4s). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stebo Posted June 19, 2014 Share Posted June 19, 2014 The church is borderline. I would probably need an aerial to be more confident. The debris wasn't very granulated from what I recall. I would put that damage on a similar level to Chickasha/Goldsby on 5/24/11 (high-end EF4s). Both of them were almost EF5s and in some eyes they should have been EF5s. I mean either way it is right on the cusp of both ratings. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
andyhb Posted June 19, 2014 Author Share Posted June 19, 2014 The church is borderline. I would probably need an aerial to be more confident. The debris wasn't very granulated from what I recall. I would put that damage on a similar level to Chickasha/Goldsby on 5/24/11 (high-end EF4s). That's a whole different can of worms, but I won't get into it. If we are specifically expecting debris granulation in order to get an EF5 rating, there's more consideration that needs to be taken into account. Some building materials are less susceptible to granulation than others. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JC-CT Posted June 19, 2014 Share Posted June 19, 2014 The enthusiast community should come up with its own rating system based on the badass-ness of the tornado. You know that's what we all want the EF scale to be anyway. This would be BA 7 out of 10, elevating up to BA-9 for the brief moment when they crossed paths. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
andyhb Posted June 19, 2014 Author Share Posted June 19, 2014 The enthusiast community should come up with its own rating system based on the badass-ness of the tornado. You know that's what we all want the EF scale to be anyway. This would be BA 7 out of 10, elevating up to BA-9 for the brief moment when they crossed paths. No...it isn't. Shouldn't be taking this literally, but that would also be incredibly insensitive to the victims of the tornadoes. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thewxmann Posted June 19, 2014 Share Posted June 19, 2014 Both of them were almost EF5s and in some eyes they should have been EF5s. I mean either way it is right on the cusp of both ratings. I agree, but unfortunately that is the state of the EF scale at this point and I am just using that standard in my posts. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JC-CT Posted June 19, 2014 Share Posted June 19, 2014 No...it isn't.And what useful information does the EF-3 rating given to El Reno provide us with, other than the actual damage that occurred? Does it tell us anything about the history of violent tornadoes in that area? Does it tell us anything about the potential for violent tornadoes in that area in the future? Is there anyone here that doesn't believe that if that tornado occurred 25 miles east of where it did, it would be the most destructive tornado on record? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JC-CT Posted June 19, 2014 Share Posted June 19, 2014 No...it isn't. Shouldn't be taking this literally, but that would also be incredibly insensitive to the victims of the tornadoes. I would argue that separate rating systems, one for actual damage that occurred, and one for estimated destructive forcing of the tornado itself, would not be completely inappropriate, insensitive or disrespectful. In many cases they would be the same. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
David Reimer Posted June 20, 2014 Share Posted June 20, 2014 I suggest we keep this thread focused on the past few days of severe weather and take the EF-scale debate to a separate thread for archive purposes. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
andyhb Posted June 20, 2014 Author Share Posted June 20, 2014 Seen some pretty extreme ground scouring pics around twitter from the Coleridge tornado, although its slow movement played a role. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Buckeye05 Posted June 20, 2014 Share Posted June 20, 2014 Seen some pretty extreme ground scouring pics around twitter from the Coleridge tornado, although its slow movement played a role. Apparently this is what it did to a corn field. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hvward Posted June 20, 2014 Share Posted June 20, 2014 Pretty decent cell popping up North of Mason City, NE. Has +50k tops and showing slight signs of rotation on velocity. Also in an area of 6000 j/kg cape but really lacking surface shear or decent helicity. More favorable environment looks to be to the SW of this cell. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thundersnow12 Posted June 20, 2014 Share Posted June 20, 2014 Made a quick time lapse from one of my videos of the first Pilger EF-4 tornado before it went through town, looking northwest. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FAYY29AmmNI Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
andyhb Posted June 21, 2014 Author Share Posted June 21, 2014 Any word from FSD on the Lane/Alpena tornado's rating? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
weunice Posted June 21, 2014 Share Posted June 21, 2014 I only see Wessington Springs and Humboldt, both EF-2 out of FSD at this point. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
andyhb Posted June 21, 2014 Author Share Posted June 21, 2014 I only see Wessington Springs and Humboldt, both EF-2 out of FSD at this point. Yeah that's what I noticed. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mfgmfg Posted June 21, 2014 Share Posted June 21, 2014 Awesome video of the suction vortices in the Alpena tornado yesterday. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E20uLPrv5uA It certainly did some damage at 3:15 if this is the same one being discussed. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thunder Road Posted June 21, 2014 Share Posted June 21, 2014 Oh and fwiw I forgot to mention that I was on the Humboldt damage survey and we had some corn scoured out of the ground: At least, that's what Todd says. I'm not rural enough to know what to look for. To me it looked like this corn was dead leftovers, but you could see how the same farm was greener farther up the hill, so I guess it was. You all know more about the EF scale than I do, but apparently although ground scouring isn't an official criterion, it usually indicates that a tornado was at least EF3 (or would have been if there was damage to confirm it). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Quincy Posted June 21, 2014 Share Posted June 21, 2014 They should rate it--the Lane/Alpena tornado was on the ground for at least a half hour from my vantage point. I didn't see the structural damage firsthand, but power lines were down in one spot and some trees were uprooted. My initial reaction was that the damage was low end on the EF-scale, but I won't get into the whole debate here. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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