1925-03-18 Tri-State Tornado damage aerial footage

[Dan Robinson]

Did you know there was a large amount of *aerial* footage shot of the Tri-State tornado damage from what appears to be a biplane in Murphysboro and De Soto, Illinois? Some Greensburg- and Joplin-esque scenes. I hadn't seen this before.

Fox News Story A6109

digital.tcl.sc.edu

 

[Jamie H]

I had no idea this existed either. Thanks for sharing, that's some rare footage!

 

[Jeff Wright]

Some of that was in Grazulis’ Tornado Video Classics as I recall

 

[Mark Gressman Jr]

The wide swath of damage, interspersed with complete destruction, and combined with the eye witness descriptions makes me think of a multi vortex, meso on the ground type storm. Pretty interesting find Dan!

 

[Jamie H]

I would imagine it was a multi-vortex mesocyclone, not unlike El Reno 2013. Many eyewitnesses described rolling smoke-like clouds and a sudden increase in intensity as it moved over. I think it was also rain wrapped for a while, though as it was likely different tornadoes from a parent supercell, it would have changed shape and look during its cycle.

I can reccommend The Tri-State Tornado by Peter Felknor and The Forgotten Storm by Wallace Akin for further reading.