blackjack123 Posted January 4, 2011 Share Posted January 4, 2011 Here is something I am curious about. I know the OKC tornado from 1999 did F5 damage to 17 homes which represented about 1-2% of the tornadoes entire path. Does anybody know what is the most homes to receive F5/EF5 damage an any F5/EF5 rated tornado? How many homes also received EF5 damage during the Greensburg tornado? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thundersnow12 Posted January 4, 2011 Share Posted January 4, 2011 I know 100-200 homes were destroyed in the Parkersburg EF-5 tornado in 08' but don't know how many of them were each given a EF-5 rating. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
janetjanet998 Posted January 4, 2011 Share Posted January 4, 2011 total guess here.... 1974 Xenia Tornado Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
blackjack123 Posted January 5, 2011 Author Share Posted January 5, 2011 I know 100-200 homes were destroyed in the Parkersburg EF-5 tornado in 08' but don't know how many of them were each given a EF-5 rating. Yeah I remember the Parkersburg tornado from 2008. I remember on TWC someody was driving by homes that looked like bare concrete slabs and the ground looked like somebody took a large blow torch across the ground. Dont know how many homes received EF5 damage although. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hoosier Posted January 5, 2011 Share Posted January 5, 2011 What about Wichita Falls 1979? Edit: I see it's F4...could've sworn somebody rated it F5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
blackjack123 Posted January 5, 2011 Author Share Posted January 5, 2011 total guess here.... 1974 Xenia Tornado Yeah it could be, but I think construction methods are looked at more closely today than during that time. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thundersnow12 Posted January 5, 2011 Share Posted January 5, 2011 Yeah I remember the Parkersburg tornado from 2008. I remember on TWC someody was driving by homes that looked like bare concrete slabs and the ground looked like somebody took a large blow torch across the ground. Dont know how many homes received EF5 damage although. Ya some of the damage from that tornado is just insane..I dont know what it would be like seeing something like that right after it occured. I saw EF-3 damage a few minutes after a tornado on 8/19/09...very humbling. Thankfully it was only to one house and barn in the country. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wxmeddler Posted January 5, 2011 Share Posted January 5, 2011 Well, its going to have to be a small (relatively) one. I would guess that any EF5/F5 over a mile and a half wide would be out of this contest. The reasoning for this is EF5/F5's are multivortex tornadoes. I remember reading that Dr. Fujita did some aftermath studying and found that EF5/F5 have 4-6 vortices rotating around a central low pressure. I would assume the tighter the distance between the vorticies would cause less room for the vorticies to "skip" houses. It would also mean that there would be a lower central pressure (theoretically) and higher overall winds. Zenia,OH is a good candidate for this. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
blackjack123 Posted January 5, 2011 Author Share Posted January 5, 2011 Ya some of the damage from that tornado is just insane..I dont know what it would be like seeing something like that right after it occured. I saw EF-3 damage a few minutes after a tornado on 8/19/09...very humbling. Thankfully it was only to one house and barn in the country. I just found a pdf on the Parkersburg tornado. 17 homes received EF5 damage and 96 received EF4 damage. ams.com/confex/ams/pdfpapers/141533.pdf I could not find any on the Greensburg tornado although. I have heard a few from Greensburg but that can mean 10,15, or 20. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Calderon Posted January 5, 2011 Share Posted January 5, 2011 Greensburg's rating was based on damage to the high school, if I remember correctly. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
blackjack123 Posted January 5, 2011 Author Share Posted January 5, 2011 Greensburg's rating was based on damage to the high school, if I remember correctly. Emailed Tim Marshall and he said there were about 6 homes that received EF5 damage in Greensburg as well as the high school and downtown brick buildings. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tornadotony Posted January 5, 2011 Share Posted January 5, 2011 What about Wichita Falls 1979? Edit: I see it's F4...could've sworn somebody rated it F5 Maybe you're confusing it with the F5 that hit on 4/3/64 on the north side of the city and at Shepperd AFB... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Calderon Posted January 5, 2011 Share Posted January 5, 2011 Emailed Tim Marshall and he said there were about 6 homes that received EF5 damage in Greensburg as well as the high school and downtown brick buildings. Gotcha, I knew the high school was a given from that event. I'm always curious about the Andover event myself, always. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wxnut Posted January 5, 2011 Share Posted January 5, 2011 Not sure if there was ever an official count.. but I imagine the Great Tri State tornado of March 1925 would hold the record for most damaged buildings.. F5 damage or otherwise. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tornadotony Posted January 5, 2011 Share Posted January 5, 2011 Not sure if there was ever an official count.. but I imagine the Great Tri State tornado of March 1925 would hold the record for most damaged buildings.. F5 damage or otherwise. I think that actually goes to Wichita Falls 1979...nothing like a 1.5mi wide tornado in a city of 100,000. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hoosier Posted January 5, 2011 Share Posted January 5, 2011 Maybe you're confusing it with the F5 that hit on 4/3/64 on the north side of the city and at Shepperd AFB... Could be. My memory of individual tornadoes outside of our general region is not that great. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thundersnow12 Posted January 5, 2011 Share Posted January 5, 2011 Well, its going to have to be a small (relatively) one. I would guess that any EF5/F5 over a mile and a half wide would be out of this contest. The reasoning for this is EF5/F5's are multivortex tornadoes. I remember reading that Dr. Fujita did some aftermath studying and found that EF5/F5 have 4-6 vortices rotating around a central low pressure. I would assume the tighter the distance between the vorticies would cause less room for the vorticies to "skip" houses. It would also mean that there would be a lower central pressure (theoretically) and higher overall winds. Zenia,OH is a good candidate for this. Oh ya the bigger monsters usually do that, and you can see it quite nicely in some of the damage photos from different tornadoes Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
blackjack123 Posted January 5, 2011 Author Share Posted January 5, 2011 Gotcha, I knew the high school was a given from that event. I'm always curious about the Andover event myself, always. The Andover tornado may have been just as strong or stronger than the Greensburg tornado. My step dad who has a brother who builds his homes better than code and he told me that he lost a home in the Andover tornado. He said the house was completely swept away and even the anchor bolts on the base plate of the foundation were snapped off. Not so sure how many homes altogether received F5 damage in the Andover tornado. Also the email I received from TM that there could have been more than 6 homes that received EF5 damage but probably not much more than that. A few areas were cleaned up before he got to survey the damage. EF5 damage is usally pretty isolated in nature. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
blackjack123 Posted January 5, 2011 Author Share Posted January 5, 2011 Well, its going to have to be a small (relatively) one. I would guess that any EF5/F5 over a mile and a half wide would be out of this contest. The reasoning for this is EF5/F5's are multivortex tornadoes. I remember reading that Dr. Fujita did some aftermath studying and found that EF5/F5 have 4-6 vortices rotating around a central low pressure. I would assume the tighter the distance between the vorticies would cause less room for the vorticies to "skip" houses. It would also mean that there would be a lower central pressure (theoretically) and higher overall winds. Zenia,OH is a good candidate for this. I have heard that some F5/EF5 tornadoes have been as narrow as 100 yds to as high as 2 miles wide. It is hard to say what the size range of a typical F5/EF5 tornado that does that type of damage. A rough estimate would probably be around 1/2mile-wide to a mile-wide. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HurricaneJosh Posted January 5, 2011 Share Posted January 5, 2011 What about Wichita Falls 1979? Edit: I see it's F4...could've sworn somebody rated it F5 Like you said, Wichita Falls was an F4-- but one thing I always found kind of astonishing about that storm was the size of the F4 damage area-- it was huge-- not just a few buildings. Combining aerial coverage and intensity, I always think of that storm as an underrated monster. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ORH_wxman Posted January 5, 2011 Share Posted January 5, 2011 Like you said, Wichita Falls was an F4-- but one thing I always found kind of astonishing about that storm was the size of the F4 damage area-- it was huge-- not just a few buildings. Combining aerial coverage and intensity, I always think of that storm as an underrated monster. The ORH tornado in 1953 had a large area of F4 damage, and it was a strip of F5 damage that has always been the debate of whether it should be an F5 or not. But the F4 damage was pretty wide...which is obviously ridiculous for anything up here. Houses removed from foundations in a wide swath. BTW I agree with you about the Wichita Falls storm...the pics from that are pretty damning. Its more impressive than most pics. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HurricaneJosh Posted January 5, 2011 Share Posted January 5, 2011 The ORH tornado in 1953 had a large area of F4 damage, and it was a strip of F5 damage that has always been the debate of whether it should be an F5 or not. But the F4 damage was pretty wide...which is obviously ridiculous for anything up here. Houses removed from foundations in a wide swath. BTW I agree with you about the Wichita Falls storm...the pics from that are pretty damning. Its more impressive than most pics. Well... The Worcester tornado was just... nuts. If I had to make a list of the freakiest wx occurrences in the USA, it would definitely be in my Top 5-- something that big and that strong up there. I know MA is no stranger to strong twisters on occasion, but I'm sorry, that one was just a little weird. Back to Wichita Falls, here's the damage path. Look at that fat, continuous F4 streak. Question: when talking about pre-EF storms, do you refer to their intensities using the old system (F) or the new system (EF)? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ORH_wxman Posted January 5, 2011 Share Posted January 5, 2011 Well... The Worcester tornado was just... nuts. If I had to make a list of the freakiest wx occurrences in the USA, it would definitely be in my Top 5-- something that big and that strong up there. I know MA is no stranger to strong twisters on occasion, but I'm sorry, that one was just a little weird. Lol..you'll get no argument from me as a climo guru from my area. It might be one of the most anomalous severe wx events in US history...or wx events of all time in US history as you said. TORs are almost always F0-F1 here...a rare F3 here and there but usually only once per decade. The ORH TOR might have been an F5 (NWS BOX thinks it was..but they dont get to rate it)...if ORH really was an F5, it would be the only F5 on record east of the Appalachians in the northeast. Even as a strong F4, its in an extremely small group. MEkster would be a great addition to this discussion as he knows a TON about TORs both here and back in the plains...but he has posted pics of the ORH '53 TOR and it looks like a plains TOR which is amazing too...most TORs in the northeast are rain wrapped but this one wasn't....it was a wedge down from a wall cloud completely visible from 10s of miles away like a LP supercell in oklahoma. Almost impossible to get here. Anyways, I'll get off my soapbox for the rarity of that one. Wichita Falls was amazing, lol. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HurricaneJosh Posted January 5, 2011 Share Posted January 5, 2011 Lol..you'll get no argument from me as a climo guru from my area. It might be one of the most anomalous severe wx events in US history...or wx events of all time in US history as you said. TORs are almost always F0-F1 here...a rare F3 here and there but usually only once per decade. The ORH TOR might have been an F5 (NWS BOX thinks it was..but they dont get to rate it)...if ORH really was an F5, it would be the only F5 on record east of the Appalachians in the northeast. Even as a strong F4, its in an extremely small group. MEkster would be a great addition to this discussion as he knows a TON about TORs both here and back in the plains...but he has posted pics of the ORH '53 TOR and it looks like a plains TOR which is amazing too...most TORs in the northeast are rain wrapped but this one wasn't....it was a wedge down from a wall cloud completely visible from 10s of miles away like a LP supercell in oklahoma. Almost impossible to get here. Anyways, I'll get off my soapbox for the rarity of that one. Wichita Falls was amazing, lol. Re: Worcester... Yeah. The pictures-- both of the tornado and the damage-- don't even look like a Northeast event. The size and harshness of it was on a completely "Midwestern" scale. The whole thing was just... weird. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tornadotony Posted January 5, 2011 Share Posted January 5, 2011 Like you said, Wichita Falls was an F4-- but one thing I always found kind of astonishing about that storm was the size of the F4 damage area-- it was huge-- not just a few buildings. Combining aerial coverage and intensity, I always think of that storm as an underrated monster. I think Wichita Falls is likely very similar to what happened in Yazoo City this past year. The giants both produced massive areas of strong-violent damage, but the combination of extreme size and rather quick forward motion (okay Wichita Falls was not 55 MPH like Yazoo City but it was also a bit smaller) just didn't allow for either 1) the winds to wind up to EF5 intensity or 2) enough duration of winds to produce EF5 damage. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AtticaFanatica Posted January 5, 2011 Share Posted January 5, 2011 most TORs in the northeast are rain wrapped but this one wasn't....it was a wedge down from a wall cloud completely visible from 10s of miles away like a LP supercell in oklahoma. Almost impossible to get here. Yes Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AtticaFanatica Posted January 5, 2011 Share Posted January 5, 2011 Well, its going to have to be a small (relatively) one. I would guess that any EF5/F5 over a mile and a half wide would be out of this contest. The reasoning for this is EF5/F5's are multivortex tornadoes. I remember reading that Dr. Fujita did some aftermath studying and found that EF5/F5 have 4-6 vortices rotating around a central low pressure. I would assume the tighter the distance between the vorticies would cause less room for the vorticies to "skip" houses. It would also mean that there would be a lower central pressure (theoretically) and higher overall winds. Zenia,OH is a good candidate for this. Oh ya the bigger monsters usually do that, and you can see it quite nicely in some of the damage photos from different tornadoes I have heard that some F5/EF5 tornadoes have been as narrow as 100 yds to as high as 2 miles wide. It is hard to say what the size range of a typical F5/EF5 tornado that does that type of damage. A rough estimate would probably be around 1/2mile-wide to a mile-wide. While radar observations of multiple vortices in tornadoes are relatively rare, those obtained in the Mulhall tornado from May 3rd, 1999, showed that multiple vortices can have diameters that are similar to that seen in an average-sized tornado (~300 m). In the Mulhall tornado, diameters of multiple vortices were as high as 400 m with radial velocities over 100 m/s (that implies incredible axisymmetric vertical vorticities, BTW). So, it's not necessarily true that a tornado with a larger core flow containing multiple vortices (both of which result from a vortex with a relatively large swirl ratio undergoing a vortex breakdown that has reached the surface) will have fewer structures impacted with winds of a certain velocity than a tornado with a smaller core flow and no multiple vortices. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
blackjack123 Posted January 5, 2011 Author Share Posted January 5, 2011 I think Wichita Falls is likely very similar to what happened in Yazoo City this past year. The giants both produced massive areas of strong-violent damage, but the combination of extreme size and rather quick forward motion (okay Wichita Falls was not 55 MPH like Yazoo City but it was also a bit smaller) just didn't allow for either 1) the winds to wind up to EF5 intensity or 2) enough duration of winds to produce EF5 damage. That one may have been an F5 by what I have heard from others and what you guys have said. It actually may have maxed out on size and intensity when did possible isolated F5 damage which was over a large swath of F4 damage. The Hallam, Nebraska F4 tornado I seem to wonder had it have hit a large city head on if it would have been an F5. I know it was 2.5 miles-wide but that doesnt mean necessarily that it would have been an F5. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hoosier Posted January 5, 2011 Share Posted January 5, 2011 Lol..you'll get no argument from me as a climo guru from my area. It might be one of the most anomalous severe wx events in US history...or wx events of all time in US history as you said. TORs are almost always F0-F1 here...a rare F3 here and there but usually only once per decade. The ORH TOR might have been an F5 (NWS BOX thinks it was..but they dont get to rate it)...if ORH really was an F5, it would be the only F5 on record east of the Appalachians in the northeast. Even as a strong F4, its in an extremely small group. MEkster would be a great addition to this discussion as he knows a TON about TORs both here and back in the plains...but he has posted pics of the ORH '53 TOR and it looks like a plains TOR which is amazing too...most TORs in the northeast are rain wrapped but this one wasn't....it was a wedge down from a wall cloud completely visible from 10s of miles away like a LP supercell in oklahoma. Almost impossible to get here. Anyways, I'll get off my soapbox for the rarity of that one. Wichita Falls was amazing, lol. Worcester was definitely anomalous (I guess all violent tornadoes are, but that one really is!). Check out this map of violent tornado days per millennium (within 25 miles of a point) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hoosier Posted January 5, 2011 Share Posted January 5, 2011 How about the opposite...what F5/EF5 impacted the least amount of homes/buildings? My guess is Plainfield as I don't know if there's been any other tornado to achieve that rating just based on damage to crops. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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