Violent tornado poll started

[Tony Lyza]

I believe I saw other pics surrounding this one, all taken in rapid succession. They show rapid evolution of these vortices consistent with them being suction vortices. I don't know where I saw these but I can ask around.

regards,

Jim

I read somewhere (I think it was a Grazulis print but I'm not positive) that they are really considered to be two tornadoes, though not in the official record. I do know for a fact that the cyclone to the left became the dominant one as the one to the right dissipated.

 

[John Peters]

I read somewhere (I think it was a Grazulis print but I'm not positive) that they are really considered to be two tornadoes, though not in the official record. I do know for a fact that the cyclone to the left became the dominant one as the one to the right dissipated.

I also read this in a case study a while back. The sequence of events was considered similar to the evolution that occured during the dissipation of the Hesston KS tornado and the subsequent strengthening of the Gossel tornado.

 

[Bobby Prentice]

Thanks..have 36 votes so far with the Greensburg KS EF5 clearly the front runner.

Funny part is, the tornado which struck Greensburg, Kansas on the night of May 4, 2007 might not have been the widest or most intense tornado produced by that supercell thunderstorm. The following tornado was just as wide (if not wider) and likely just as intense. It struck in a rural area where there were insufficient damage indicators to reveal its true intensity. Here is the official NWS tornado track map for Kiowa County, Kansas (May 4, 2007):

I can vouch as to the width of the tornado northeast of Greensburg (in nc/ne Kiowa County, Kansas). My chase partners and I had a devil of a time trying to cross its path the following afternoon due a nearly 2 mile wide swath of downed trees. Fortunetly, a farmer had cleared a path with his backhoe.

A complete list of official F5/EF5 tornadoes since 1950 can be found here:
F5 and EF5 Tornadoes, 1950-Present by the NWS Storm Prediction Center

There are undoubtedly many more tornadoes which had wind speeds just a strong as the ones on this list, but they too, had insufficient damage indicators to reveal their true intensity.

 

[Bobby Prentice]

The sheer magnitude of this tornado (Hallam, NE) 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.

This is a dubious statement. "Tornado Alley" (Great Plains in the central US) wasn't setteled until the late 1880's/early 1900's. Official records didn't begin until 1950. The record keeping for even the larger tornadoes wasn't any good until the advent of Doppler weather radar and storm chasing in the 1980's and 1990's.

I lived through the "Great Flood of 1993" while working at the National Weather Service in Des Moines, Iowa. Some tried to call that the "500 year flood." How do you know that when the region was only settled about 150 years ago?

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,...

You need to be careful with this statement. Tornado vortices are more complex than that and go through multivortex stages.

The Online Tornado FAQ: Multiple Vortex Tornado by Roger Edwards

 

[Willie Dines]

Hey Bobby , how's it going buddy?

I have studied the bahaviour patterns of suction vorticies, when I had the tornado machine up and running, and I have in fact had a tornado do that exact same thing, where the main funnel, would have a series of suction vortices, but on 1 occasion, they had much smaller and barely recogniseable secondary suction vortices, which I have always suspected to be the case in Hallam, NE, but to say that is purely speculation, because there aren't any DOW2 scans of the tornado, since the DOW2 crew were too far away from the parent storm to perform any kind of scans on the tornado, there are some Dopplar radar images, but they hold minimal information, as reguards the tornado's structure, velocities, dew point temps, etc.

The views that I have mentioned, are purey from the little information that I have come across on the event.

Willie

 

[John Peters]

Funny part is, the tornado which struck Greensburg, Kansas on the night of May 4, 2007 might not have been the widest or most intense tornado produced by that supercell thunderstorm. The following tornado was just as wide (if not wider) and likely just as intense. It struck in a rural area where there were insufficient damage indicators to reveal its true intensity. Here is the official NWS tornado track map for Kiowa County, Kansas (May 4, 2007):

I can vouch as to the width of the tornado northeast of Greensburg (in nc/ne Kiowa County, Kansas). My chase partners and I had a devil of a time trying to cross its path the following afternoon due a nearly 2 mile wide swath of downed trees. Fortunetly, a farmer had cleared a path with his backhoe.

A complete list of official F5/EF5 tornadoes since 1950 can be found here:
F5 and EF5 Tornadoes, 1950-Present by the NWS Storm Prediction Center

There are undoubtedly many more tornadoes which had wind speeds just a strong as the ones on this list, but they too, had insufficient damage indicators to reveal their true intensity.

Yeah, I wonder if DDC will release any more information on this tornado? It is hard to conclude anything about its "violence" without seeing any damage photos.

 

[Chris Foltz]

Yeah, I wonder if DDC will release any more information on this tornado? It is hard to conclude anything about its "violence" without seeing any damage photos.

Are you being serious here? What other "photos" do you feel you need to see? A quick review of the reports thread for the Greensburg tornado show all the evidence I need to see to verify this was a violent tornado.

 

[Tony Lyza]

Are you being serious here? What other "photos" do you feel you need to see? A quick review of the reports thread for the Greensburg tornado show all the evidence I need to see to verify this was a violent tornado.

I believe he was talking about the 2nd large tornado in Kiowa County.

 

[Dick McGowan]

Yeah, I wonder if DDC will release any more information on this tornado? It is hard to conclude anything about its "violence" without seeing any damage photos.

When we drove through on May 5th and again on May 21st, we measured 2.1 miles width of a damage path (intense damage) just east of Macksville (like 1.5-2 miles east) and west of St. John's. The strong/violent tornado that barely missed Macksville on the 5th (I measured exactly one mile to the east parallel to US 50) was just west of the 4th's damage path by less than a mile I would guess. There is some sort of creek that runs through there, with nearly every tree damaged severely. (As far as we could see north of US 50 and south of there) Hard to tell on the 22nd what was done to structures, as most of them were beginning to repair them.

I have no doubt, by seeing Shane and Mickey's video stills and radar images/damage width/path, that this tornado was larger (May 4th) than the Greensburg one, most likely equal to/ possibly even more violent. That's of course saying if it would have hit something to rate it.

 

[Danny Neal]

I am surprised 4/26/91(Red Rock, Andover) or 6/8/95(Kellerville. Allison, Pampa) were not mentioned. Many of you chased these storms. I am namely most interested in the Kellerville and Allison storms. I haven't been able to see damage photos of either, but the write up I am reading and video that a couple of you on here have shot, screams violent tornado, especially Allison.

"The target storm underwent another phase of cyclic tornadogenesis (generating tornadoes in a cycle or cyclic manner) just southeast of the demise of the Kellerville tornado. This occurred between Wheeler and Briscoe. The second large, violent tornado that we observed developed about 6 miles southwest of Allison, Texas. It moved directly toward Allison, but veered to the left just prior to striking the community, and passed 1.5 miles west of town. It then meandered to a position about 3 miles northwest of Allison and remained nearly stationary for a period of about 20 minutes.
This tornado was well-sampled with the mobile mesonet (statewide network of weather instruments), and perhaps with the mobile scanning Doppler, as well as with the NOAA P-3. Teams were positioned southeast-northeast of the tornado, as well as west of the tornado as it crossed the highway west of Allison. The mobile scanning Doppler as well as WSR-88D depicted as many as four tornadoes and/or mesocyclones occurring simultaneously within an area roughly 12 miles on a side north of the Briscoe/Allison road."




Just a small exerpt from the article. If we bring up others prior to 2000 why not that cluster.

 

[Brian Stertz]

This particular tornado poll is for those mean tornadoes starting 2000 and ending 2007. This is why I have not included the Andover, Kellerville, and Allsion tornadoes. They certainly were tremendously violent tornadoes.

So far... the Greensburg KS tornado has received 65 out of 101 votes. As Bobby Prentice mentioned the huge tornado after the Greensburg one curly-q'd out was possibly as violent. I believe it received a EF-3 rating by the NWS damage surveyors however. It's probable that the most violent phase of that particular huge tornado was over open country.

 

[Danny Neal]

This particular tornado poll is for those mean tornadoes starting 2000 and ending 2007. This is why I have not included the Andover, Kellerville, and Allsion tornadoes. They certainly were tremendously violent tornadoes.

I realize that, which is why I was skeptical in posting. I figured others have mentioned prior events, so why not throw that out there. In regards to your poll, by shear magnitude Greensburg takes the cake in my book. Although something about a large tornado hitting a high school full of kids really stands out to me.....

 

[Chad Cowan]

I'm surprised there has been no mention of the Aug 28, 1990 F5 Plainfield, IL tornado. When Skip Talbot and I met with Tom Skilling, he said that Dr. Fujita told him that was the most incredible damage he ever surveyed. There was no tornado warning issued until it had lifted and this brought about heavy amounts of scrutiny for the Chicago NWS office. This led to the restructuring of the Chicago CWA, which had, at the time of the tornado, been in charge of the entire state of Illinois. Somehow, there are no photographs or videos of the tornado. Low level wind fields were not prime for tornadoes, but the extreme instability made up for the lack of helicity. Here are a few interesting facts about it:

• The only F5 tornado on record to occur in August

• The storm was detected on radar 130 min before it went tornadic

• 29 Fatalities, +300 inured, ~$200 million damage

• ~8000 j/kg SBCAPE, -13C LI