Violent tornado poll started

Brian Stertz

Brian Stertz

EF5
Joined
Nov 28, 2005
Messages
1,054
Location
Overland Park KS
The opportunities to add more features to my website are becoming more open as the summer wears on...and it gets hotter by the day. I have started a new poll on my website Vortex Times. I plan on keeping this violent tornado 2000-2007 poll open until December 31, 2007. It's a one vote...one time selection poll. Special extra....if anyone can name the tornado photo on that page....I will announce the people who provided correct answers on Dec. 31st as well. Send your guess to my e.mail at
[email protected].

http://vortex-times.com/ViolentTornPoll.htm
 
Thanks..have 36 votes so far with the Greensburg KS EF5 clearly the front runner. Now the 2nd and 3rd place ones will have to be determined after more votes pile in. Got lots of more time for this voting to tally up.
 
Of the various selections, I'm going to post my answer on here, for the sake of discussion purposes and to get more people involved in the voting and discussion :)

As huge an event as Greensburg, KS, was, I voted the Hallam, NE MONSTER WEDGE as the most violent tornado yet, for various reasons.

The sheer magnitude of this tornado is incredible, 2.5 miles wide is completely and totally, a once every thousand or so years type occurance, as far as I'm aware.

Another reason that I choose this particular event, is also because the amount of inflow that tornado had, must've been incredible in itself, and God only knows just how fast the wind speeds were in the core of the tornado itself.

The 1 thing that I find to be the most remarkable about that tornado, is the fact that Hallam, was on the NNW side, of the tornado's path, just before it reached it's maximum width, which is on the left side of a tornado, is the weaker side, and so, for a town like Hallam to be 1.5 miles from the tornado's core, and to yet still have F4 damage, whilst being on the tornado's weaker side, says quite alot about just how violent this tornado really was, reguardless of it being out in open plains, with the exception of Hallam being completely wrecked and Wilber, NE, being side swiped, judging by the image of the damage path.

I don't even want to imagine what it would've been like, had this tornado gone through a large town or a city, thank God that it didn't.

What are your thoughts on this people? :)

Willie

EDIT - Corrected the "Inflo" typing goof that I made :) lol
 
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I was really wowed by the incredibly wide damage swath that the Hallam tornado had....seeing this for the first time back in March. The Greensburg one had a tremendous swath too, but the Hallam one was just hard to believe it could happen. I know the debate continues on with the Hallam one being a complex variety of multiple vorticies and intense RFDs. I guess the only way to have known that was to have been in the damage core of the 2.5 mile wide monster. Violent tornado intensity wise, I think the Greensburg one has the edge on all on the list. Both the Franklin and Harper KS tornadoes did have a moment where they were on the fringes of EF5 category damage however.
 
Willie Dines said:
Of the various selections, I'm going to post my answer on here, for the sake of discussion purposes and to get more people involved in the voting and discussion :)

As huge an event as Greensburg, KS, was, I voted the Hallam, NE MONSTER WEDGE as the most violent tornado yet, for various reasons.

The sheer magnitude of this tornado is incredible, 2.5 miles wide is completely and totally, a once every thousand or so years type occurance, as far as I'm aware.

Another reason that I choose this particular event, is also because the amount of inflo inflow that tornado had, must've been incredible in itself, and God only knows just how fast the wind speeds were in the core of the tornado itself.

The 1 thing that I find to be the most remarkable about that tornado, is the fact that Hallam, was on the NNW side, of the tornado's path, just before it reached it's maximum width, which is on the left side of a tornado, is the weaker side, and so, for a town like Hallam to be 1.5 miles from the tornado's core, and to yet still have F4 damage, whilst being on the tornado's weaker side, says quite alot about just how violent this tornado really was, reguardless of it being out in open plains, with the exception of Hallam being completely wrecked and Wilber, NE, being side swiped, judging by the image of the damage path.

I don't even want to imagine what it would've been like, had this tornado gone through a large town or a city, thank God that it didn't.

What are your thoughts on this people? :)

Willie
Click to expand...

Voted Hallam, and agree with all of these points discussed


Edit: It would be interesting if there were a more in depth analysis of the 2nd "massive" tornado produced by the Greensburg storm available on the web somewhere. DDC states on the current site that the tornado exceeded 2 miles in width... now of course this poll is in regards to the "most violent" as apposed to "largest"; however, the greensburg storm produced the most pronounced TVS and tornado debris signature i have ever seen during the period in which it produced this tornado.
 
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Most violent

Its hard to lable a tornado "most violent". Would violent mean strongest winds? Most damage? or most loss of life? My guess would be a combination of all three. An angry monster, reguardless of his size is not considered violent until he beats on somebody. If a tornado stays out in grassy wheat fields most of its life, it would not be violent , even if it had 300 mph winds. If an EF2 hits a large retirement trailer park in Florida and kills 250 people, that would be violent. Its hard to compare with just one word.
 
Kem Poyner said:
Its hard to lable a tornado "most violent". Would violent mean strongest winds? Most damage? or most loss of life? My guess would be a combination of all three. An angry monster, reguardless of his size is not considered violent until he beats on somebody. If a tornado stays out in grassy wheat fields most of its life, it would not be violent , even if it had 300 mph winds. If an EF2 hits a large retirement trailer park in Florida and kills 250 people, that would be violent. Its hard to compare with just one word.
Click to expand...

good point. My interpretation was more akin to "most powerful", with the assumption that the term "violent" is referring to EF4/EF5 tornadoes.
 
I guess the most violent category would be best described as a complete package...impressive TVS signatures...human impact...size. The path length is not always a good one though. The Harper KS one had a fairly short path for a violent tornado but...was incredibly destructive.
 
I am planning on doing polls by state...on the top 5 violent tornadoes since 1970. This will be an interesting set of polls that I will keep active indefinitely. The April 3, 1974 outbreak will definitely be well represented.
 
I haven't yet had the oppertunity to see any other video footage, than what was uploaded to youtube, which I believe is/was? only a few minutes long, early in the tornado's life cycle, shortly after it had touched down, but during the video cplid, it did show that it was a multiple vortex tornado in it's early stages, althought the vorticies were quite small :)

Willie
 
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