blackjack123 Posted January 5, 2011 Author 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. That is somewhat debatable but most F4/EF4 or F5/EF5 rated events to homes seemed to have utter vegetation/ground scouring. I have seen this with many tornadoes. It looks like someone took a large blowtorch across the ground. Some photos I have seen are like the Udall, Kansas tornado, Topeka, Kansas tornado, the Andover, Kansas tornado, the Oakfield Wisconsin tornado, the Jarrell, Texas tornado, the Oak Grove tornado, the OKC tornado in 1999, the Girard/Franklin, Kansas tornado, the Harper, Kansas tornado,the Greensburg, Kansas tornado, the Parkersburg, Iowa tornado, the Yazoo City, Mississippi tornado, the Bowdle, South Dakota tornado, and the Sibley, Iowa tornado. Of course there are many more as well. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AtticaFanatica 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. Well, there are likely dozens of tornadoes that had F5 strength and hit no structures, but I know that's not what you're asking. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stebo 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. Yeah same with the tornado the day before in Flint in 1953. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hoosier Posted January 5, 2011 Share Posted January 5, 2011 Well, there are likely dozens of tornadoes that had F5 strength and hit no structures, but I know that's not what you're asking. That's pretty safe to say. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ORH_wxman Posted January 5, 2011 Share Posted January 5, 2011 Yeah same with the tornado the day before in Flint in 1953. Yeah the two tornadoes were eerily similar. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
baroclinic_instability Posted January 5, 2011 Share Posted January 5, 2011 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) The bullseye near Norman, OK is no surprise or coincidence at all. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hoosier Posted January 5, 2011 Share Posted January 5, 2011 Yeah the two tornadoes were eerily similar. Are there any soundings available from that day? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thundersnow12 Posted January 5, 2011 Share Posted January 5, 2011 Are there any soundings available from that day? You might be able to go the Plymouth site and get old soundings, I know you can for past dates but I dont know how far you can go back. I do it quite a bit looking at past events. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hoosier Posted January 5, 2011 Share Posted January 5, 2011 You might be able to go the Plymouth site and get old soundings, I know you can for past dates but I dont know how far you can go back. I do it quite a bit looking at past events. I already checked there...they only go back to 1957. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sojitodd Posted January 6, 2011 Share Posted January 6, 2011 About the Xenia tornado...I think the only F5 damage was to some homes in the Windsor Park subdivision(first part of the town hit) and in Arrowhead(right across the freeway and next in line). I think the rest of the damage in Xenia was no greater than F4, and mostly F3 or lower. From the aerial pics (few that there are) I have seen of Windsor Park and Arrowhead taken the day after by the AP, I saw only a few that were actually completely bare slabs with debris swept away. Some of the Arrowhead aerial pics online show bare foundations, but many were actually 'cleaned up' and searched through by that time, with the debris being piled neatly right around the perimeter of the foundations. But there are a few others where there are bare foundations and NO debris anywhere near the particular house in question as well. I have not seen any pics of F5 damage in other parts of Xenia-certainly F4/EF4, but not F5(but I admit I am not exactly an expert on this, far from it in fact. Just sayin'. Windsor Park took the very first and very worst of it IMO. A rather small section of the subdivision was actually struck(less in size than Arrowhead) but there were at least nine deaths there, and only two in Arrowhead. And many of the homes had at least F4/EF4 damage-entire block sized areas with every house having at least that level of damage. The infamous 'court destruction"' aerial pics of the subdivision cul-de-sacs wiped out in Xenia were in fact in Windsor Park. My (admittedly far less knowledgable than most of you) opinion would be the Tri-State Tornado-simply because it was so strong and hit so many towns so hard and so straight on-8,000 or so homeless in Murphysboro alone. But then you have quality of construction to consider. I also think some of those tornadoes in the earlier years like Tupelo and Gainesville might be considered-but again you have to take in quality of constuction and all. Too bad there is just not much info on many of them. just my ramblings opinions and such. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ORH_wxman Posted January 6, 2011 Share Posted January 6, 2011 Are there any soundings available from that day? Yeah there are. The problem with here though is the only soundings you can get are either from ALB or CHH (Chatham MA on the Cape)....both didn't accurately represent the airmass over interior SNE that day. There might be some good ones though from Michigan on June 8th. I'm pretty sure I've actually seen one...I recall that it was definitely an EML event. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stebo Posted January 6, 2011 Share Posted January 6, 2011 Are there any soundings available from that day? Look at what I found. Boy its a beauty. http://www.crh.noaa....ge=Figure_6.jpg and attachment the same. http://www.crh.noaa....r/metModern.php another good link too. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
L.B. LaForce Posted January 6, 2011 Share Posted January 6, 2011 Look at what I found. Boy its a beauty. http://www.crh.noaa....ge=Figure_6.jpg and attachment the same. http://www.crh.noaa....r/metModern.php another good link too. Wow, not a SW sfc wind!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stebo Posted January 6, 2011 Share Posted January 6, 2011 Wow, not a SW sfc wind!!! Yeah, must not be a real sounding for Michigan then Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hoosier Posted January 6, 2011 Share Posted January 6, 2011 Yeah there are. The problem with here though is the only soundings you can get are either from ALB or CHH (Chatham MA on the Cape)....both didn't accurately represent the airmass over interior SNE that day. There might be some good ones though from Michigan on June 8th. I'm pretty sure I've actually seen one...I recall that it was definitely an EML event. Pretty hard to get a good EML up there I would imagine? I can feel your pain to some extent...we usually get some sort of modified version but occasionally it's pretty stout. Gonna go on a bit of a tangent here, but I've noticed that some of the bigger tornado outbreaks in my area were in the presence of a dryline (or at least a hybrid dryline with a very pronounced dewpoint gradient) that made it abnormally far east. I'm talking like IL/eastern Missouri. 4/11/65, 4/3/74, and 4/19/96 are 3 such cases, the last of which holds the single day record for tornadoes in IL. We get our share of tornadoes without it, but when it does happen, it's something to watch out for. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thundersnow12 Posted January 6, 2011 Share Posted January 6, 2011 Pretty hard to get a good EML up there I would imagine? I can feel your pain to some extent...we usually get some sort of modified version but occasionally it's pretty stout. Gonna go on a bit of a tangent here, but I've noticed that some of the bigger tornado outbreaks in my area were in the presence of a dryline (or at least a hybrid dryline with a very pronounced dewpoint gradient) that made it abnormally far east. I'm talking like IL/eastern Missouri. 4/11/65, 4/3/74, and 4/19/96 are 3 such cases, the last of which holds the single day record for tornadoes in IL. We get our share of tornadoes without it, but when it does happen, it's something to watch out for. Have looked at 4/19/96 alot. I did some hand analysis from that day both UA and sfc as well as downloading radar data and going back and looking at that. And thats the problem with setups out here, its hard to get a good EML this far east and we ALWAYS are dealing with junk from the day/night before where the plains doesn't have that problem. Lately, its been IL warm fronts that have been magic. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tornadotony Posted January 6, 2011 Share Posted January 6, 2011 Pretty hard to get a good EML up there I would imagine? I can feel your pain to some extent...we usually get some sort of modified version but occasionally it's pretty stout. Gonna go on a bit of a tangent here, but I've noticed that some of the bigger tornado outbreaks in my area were in the presence of a dryline (or at least a hybrid dryline with a very pronounced dewpoint gradient) that made it abnormally far east. I'm talking like IL/eastern Missouri. 4/11/65, 4/3/74, and 4/19/96 are 3 such cases, the last of which holds the single day record for tornadoes in IL. We get our share of tornadoes without it, but when it does happen, it's something to watch out for. Which is what is so damn concerning about spring 2011 given the drought forming on the plains... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hoosier Posted January 6, 2011 Share Posted January 6, 2011 Have looked at 4/19/96 alot. I did some hand analysis from that day both UA and sfc as well as downloading radar data and going back and looking at that. And thats the problem with setups out here, its hard to get a good EML this far east and we ALWAYS are dealing with junk from the day/night before where the plains doesn't have that problem. Lately, its been IL warm fronts that have been magic. It is what it is. Storms generally aren't as photogenic or pretty on radar, but other than the Plains, there's not many places in the US that are better than IL in terms of tornado frequency and chaseability. Maybe parts of the South but I think the visibility mostly stinks there. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wxnut Posted January 6, 2011 Share Posted January 6, 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. The Edmonton tornado of July 31 1987 ranks similarly for sheer anamalous tornado events. An absolute monster F4 wedge cutting through a city at 53 deg N latitude. Like ORH in 1953, looked like something right out of OK. Unreal. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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