An online damage survey please

[MJ Poore]

I'm interested in large E/F4-5 tornado's that form outside of the United States. I know of at least one, and three probable F4 tornado's that have occured in my part of the world. I've attached two damage pics of a tornado that occured here in 2003, one of a number of tornadoes that occured on that day. It was given an F3 at the time. It looks to me more like F4 judging by the damage, maybe even an EF5 on the new scale. These pics are the only two I can provide and are courtesy of the South African Weather Service. Any thoughts, I'd say EF4 damage. Can anyone see a case for EF5?

 

[Mike Peregrine]

I'd say that's going to be nearly impossible for anyone on this board to reasonably judge, being that in addition to being half a world away, the building standards there are also completely foreign. Someone like Tim Marshall would probably have to actually GO to Africa and judge the compatabilities these structures had against others in the region to determine their strength before applying a damage rating to them. Just a hunch. The thing is that if the structures were poorly put together, then it wouldn't have taken as much wind to do the damage you see there. And the trees may be a false indicator too, as this photo may have been taken during the dry season when the foliage is dry and brittle. Interesting shots, but would definitely need lots more information -

 

[Lars Lowinski]

Hi,

there´s quite a number of cases from central Europe where violent tornadoes did damage on a scale that would be comparable to F/EF-4 and even some F/EF-5 in the last century. Three of the most notable events over here are the 1967 outbreak that struck parts of nrn France as well as the Benelux countries on June 24th and 25th of that year, the tornadoes and downbursts from August 10th, 1925 mainly in the Netherlands and the outbreak from June 1st, 1927 in parts of the Netherlands and nwrn Germany.

One tornado that occured on the evening of June 24th, 1967 has been classified an F-5 and another one F-4 in a paper by Dessens and Snow from 1988. And there´s also a case from srn Germany where a big city was hit by a nighttime F-4 on July 10th, 1968 around 10 p.m.

Unfortunately, I don´t have much time today (work and preparations for our upcoming chasecation) but I will get back to you with more information later.

Cheers,

Lars

 

[MJ Poore]

Thanks for the replies.

Mike, yes it does need more evidence. The buildings shown here are solid concrete brick and mortar. That's what got me thinking just strong it must have been. As an aside, from what I've seen in Africa, mud huts go down with an F1, and are completely scoured away leaving only the smooth base in an F3. But these are real solid buildings here.

Lars, if you have the time, I'd like to know more about the German F5 in the 1960's and how it happened. Sounds interesting, I've never heard of am F5 outside of the US.

Kind regards

Mungo

 

[Stan Rose]

Hi Mungo: I completely agree with what Mike said above, but that won't stop me from speculating from a couple observations about the photos based on the photos, I'd guestimate strong EF-3 to possibly EF-4.
Unless you were personally there and inspected with knowlege of the construction, i'm not sure how you can assess that they were "solid" buildings. A lot of the 'concrete/brick' in the photos looks suspiciously like drywall and plaster to me, but i could be wrong. The debris seems piled up on the collapsed structures, as opposed to blown away. The surrounding trees still have a fair amount of small limbs, and even some signs of foliage. That's why based on the photos alone i don't think i could go any higher in my guess.

 

[Zac Flamig]

Based on the damage to the trees alone I'd go with a guess of EF-0 to EF-1. There are lots of small limbs on the trees which greatly reduces the strength of the tornado. Its entirely possible that the buildings took the direct strike and have higher damage but just from pictures its hard to deduce the damage done to a building and exactly how it was constructed.

 

[MJ Poore]

It's interesting how damage looks in other parts of the world due to different vegetation and building codes. Indeed, where is Tim Marshall when you need him.

To clarfiy, the trees here are not winter brittle because the area itself is sub tropical.

The buildings clearly look to me like brickwork and concrete. In fact most rural schools in SA are constructed out of those big 2ftx1ft ash brick blocks that I can see lying on the ground amid the concrete debris.

 

[Peter Kirk]

Lars, if you have the time, I'd like to know more about the German F5 in the 1960's and how it happened. Sounds interesting, I've never heard of am F5 outside of the US.

There have been quite a few of that intensity reported in various countries around the world.

A couple of these are listed on the TORRO website. I'm sure other places like Bangladesh have them as well.

Across the continent, a number of tornadoes are believed to have reached T10 - although it is always difficult to rate violent tornadoes, especially those at the upper end of the category. Violent (T8-T11) tornadoes have occurred in many countries, although only a few nations have experienced a T10. However, two tornadoes are rated T10-11 with the upper category implying windspeeds close to the 500 km h-1 (311 mi h-1) mark. On August 19, 1845, a violent T10-11 tornado devastated Montville (Seine-et-Maritime) in France. Sources give conflicting information as this lunch-time tornado travelled 15 or 30 km, was 100 or 300 m wide and killed 70 & injured 130 or (less probable) killed 200 people. At a similar time of day on July 24, 1930, the Treviso-Udine area (Veneto / Friuli-Venezia Giulia) of Italy was devastated by a 80 km long T10-11 tornado, which claimed 22 or 23 lives.

On June 9, 1984, over 400 were killed and 213 injured when a T10 tornado hit Belyanitsky, Ivanovo and Balino in western Russia.

http://www.torro.org.uk/TORRO/research/whirlextreme.php

 

[Martin North]

I cannot see those buildings as having been built to any particular building code really.

I doubt there are steel girders and the interior dividing walls wouldn't have been up to much (even if there were any at all).

I would say that damage was high end F3 on the old scale and EF4 on the new...

I would imagine (in fact I'd be fairly certain) that in meteorologically volatile places like Bangladesh and the Argentinian Pampas...there would have been plenty of F5 and EF5 tornadoes...

 

[MJ Poore]

Hi Martin, yes I do agree having read all the comments that there isnt case for it being over EF4.

In theory it's always possibe to have an E/F5 in places like Argentina, Bangladesh, China, South Africa or apparently even Germany. But in real life no one's ever recorded one, at least as far as I am aware.

Always lots of anacdotal evidence. I know of one tornado in Swaziland in 1976 which according to newspaper reports - 'picked up a train and derailed it', and then it 'threw a vehicle with four occupants a distance of 2 km through the air.' (they all died). Who knows what it was because no investigation was ever done.

It seems to me that the US is the only place on earth that has the meteorological perfection that delivers regular big stuff. I can only talk from what I know in S Africa and while we usually get good instability and boundaries with shallow meso lows, we only occasionally experience the intense lows like the midwest which deliver the deep shear that gives exeptional F4-5 stuff. And I'd guess it's the same to some degree for all the other places mentioned.

Bangladesh has a high body count in terms of tornado damage. But when you consider that it has 150 million people living in a place the size of Oklahoma, even a 40km long F3 is going to run over a lot of people. It's funnny how no one there ever seems to do F-scale ratings. I've heard about at least three tornadoes there killing in excess of 60 people a time in the past two years.