The most powerful tornado we have on record so far is the May 3rd 1999 Moore tornado. Doppler On Wheels measured a wind speed of 318 mph just above the ground.
@ericwitcher952 they thought about implementing an F6 in THE BEGINNING OF THE F SCALE, but they didn't. So "technically " they couldn't have considered that in 1999. Sorry, but that's the truth.
@@ericwitcher952 the original "model" did, but the original scale to be used was F1-5. Dr Fujita said that after the damage of the F5, it would be nearly impossible to find evidence for anything higher. Therefore, the scale stopped at F5. I get/ understand what you are saying though
Thank you for this information, I just moved to Oklahoma and am going to Walmart tomorrow to pick up some snow shoes to keep my family safe from the next tornado
Eric Snodgrass is incredible at what he does. So much good information and explained in a clear way to understand. One of his best teaching videos yet. Great video
so this was posted 3 years ago, yet it's currently May, 2024 and the title of this video says most powerful tornado in recorded history 2023. wow this guy knows how to fortune tell the future. that's all i got.
I'm glad that the movie 'Twister' was mentioned. I live in Belgium, where tornadoes don't happen often and certainly not as strong as in the USA, but when I saw the movie as a kid, I was really fascinated by tornadoes, and up to this day I am. Supercell storms used to be very rare here, but the last 10 years we have had more thunderstorms like this, with heavy hail damage as well. Even though I'd like to see a tornado, I hope these stronger storms don't generate one here, since the area is so densely populated.
Im from iowa, these are creepy things and maybe the closest to god we can actually get? Very interesting stuff when seen from a TV.....in real life its a big bottle of f#ck this. Ill be good if i never see one in real life again.
Bruh. Y'all don't want none of this, I promise you. Take it from an Okie (Oklahoma resident) who has to give up a good section of my closet because they can hit any time of year. Peak season is spring, but 2 years ago, we had a monster rip through (thankfully ) just the edge of town in the middle of November. We've had several around Christmas a few years back. You just never know, and now they are getting more and more unpredictable. I've heard that siren in my nightmares since I was a kid. It's a lot like a, what is it, like a British air raid siren. And they have to test them, so some Saturday morning you're lying in bed and not expecting anything because the weather is good, then.....🔊! (Swegle Studios has a good video called "Tornado Sirens are Scary..." if you want to know more. ) It all just sucks because if you’re poor you cant afford a storm cellar, and tbh i think beyond a certain point a closet i think is just about as effective as hiding under your desk in a nuclear blast. But if you have kids you gotta tell them that it will keep them safe. I hope with climate change y'all dont start seeing them too. If you do, dont be dumb like us and go out on your porch trying to see them. (Can't blame that one on tiktok. it's a long-standing tradition by our people, lol.) Anyway, stay safe out there!
In April of 2015 we were staying in Cleburne TX as a tornado passed just south of us, about a mile away. Being from the Northwest it was about the most intense storm I have ever seen in person. It was just after sunset and there was torrential rain was coming down so thick and fast it was like a wall of water. There was so much lightning it was like a stobe light. A group of us were gathered outside under the hotels awning watching the storm, and though we couldn't see it, we could hear the tornado as it passed. It sounded like the roar of a jet engine without the whine. Luckily it went through a mostly uninhabited area south of the city. The next day we drove through the area where the tornado was, and we saw full grown trees twisted apart and splintered into toothpicks. The grass in the area was about 3 feet tall but all knocked completely flat and woven together like a carpet. It was surreal looking at all the destruction knowing how close we were to its path. Seeing it in person really put into perspective how incredibly powerful these things are, and how absolutely helpless you are in the face of a tornado. They come so fast and are gone so quickly there really is nothing that you can do apart from hunker down and hope you aren't in the way. You are completely at the mercy of the storm. Videos really do not do them justice.
This video was a major relief for me. I get crazy anxiety with storms and I hate the idea of something coming out of the sky lol, I appreciate all of the knowledge!
thank you thank you thank you! what a wonderful production. i have had to run from three tornadoes so i was after knowledge about what the hell was going on. i watched several videos on the subject and for me this was the best one.
This is the best descriptive and accurately/properly presented tutorial about tornadoes i have ever seen. Congratulations on a very well done documentary. Its about time someone did it right. This should be a must watch for all!!! Thank you
You obviously haven't seen much. Do some more studying on your own like most of us tornado junkies have. You'll come back to this video and be able to pick apart the flaws and inaccuracies in this video. Yes, it appears to be an informative video. But there's no certainties with what he's saying. This is what a book says. Tornadoes in the past 27 years have proven much of this wrong.
The essential thing is not explained in this video. Why is the kinetic energy so concentrated in a tornado? The energy in the wind is increased several 100 times. What are the mechanisms that lead to this?
The rear flank downdraft is stretched by the updraft, and the conservation of angular momentum states that the column of air will spin faster the further it is stretched.
@@KrisOsterhout I think you mean the other way around. It is usually said that the rear flank downdraft stretches and tightens the rotating updraft. But this is also misleading and is a naive way of looking at it. Just because two phenonoma happen at the same time do not necessarily mean that one causes the other. The RFD is caused by rain falling out to the side of the tornado. And as it does so, some of the rain will evaporate when falling down the layers of air, which cools the air, and it will fall even faster. If the rain fell straight down, like in a regular thunder storm, it would cool the raising air, and quickly kill the updraft. This is a reason thunderstorms are so short lived. Another thing is that the angular momentum of a tornado increases. It is not constant. The whole system is constant, but the angular momentum of the rotating column itself is increasing. This is the essential point, and this is never explained. It is actually easy to explain, but due to incompetence and lazy repetition of old myths, it never is.
@@runeaanderaa6840 I’m intrigued, and I love learning. Can you elaborate? I’ll fully admit I’m not a meteorologist and I’m no expert in fluid dynamics.
@@KrisOsterhout Sure. I will be happy to. I don't think the RFD directly strengthen the tornado, but because the crosswinds carries the rain away from the tornado, the tornado will not be weakened by the cold rain, and it can continue to develop. There are another few things that are often presented that are wrong. It is often said that in the Tornado Alley, cold, dry wind from the Rockys blow in on top of hot, moist air from the Gulf of Mexico. This is not totally correct. The air is colder at 3000 m than at ground level, but this is because it is so high up. If one took a parcel of air from this height and transported it down to ground level, the air will be compressed and the temperature will be higher than the temperature at ground level. So the air higher up is actually relatively warmer than the air at ground level. Relatively warmer relative to it's height, that is. This state is stable, like the weather is on a nice summer day. But typically in the afternoon, the air cools down, but the ground is still warm. Then the air at ground level will start raising. And if it is moist, water will condensate, and this is an exothermal process. The air will still be cooling down as it raises, but it will not be as cold as it otherwise would be, and this typically develops into a thunderstorm. But due to the falling rain, the air at ground level is cooled down and stops raising. This is one reason why thunderstorms are so short lived. But under right conditions, tornados will develop. For this to happen, the air at low level must rotate, and the rain on top must be blown away to the side. When the air is sucked in towards the centre of the updraft, it will rotate faster, in according to the law of conservation of angular momentum. An example of how this works is to have an object on a string, let's say 2m, that you rotate over your head. If you shorten the string to 1m, for the angular momentum to be the same, the velocity of the object must be twice as high. This again means that the object will rotate in circles 4 times faster. The same is the case with parcels of air. When the air is pulled in towards the centre of the tornado, the velocity increases very quickly, and the angular speed increases even faster. The important effect of this is that there will be constant friction between the fast rotating air near the centre and the slower rotating air further out. This means that air near the centre will give away kinetic energy to the air further out. So when the air reaches the centre and is being sucked up, it has transferred much of it's angular momentum to the air further out, which again will transfer even more of it's angular momentum to the air even further out, and so on. In this way, the whole system has a constant angular momentum, but the energy is taken from the air that is sucked up and concentrated where it causes the most damage. In the condensation funnel in the centre, one will have the exothermal effect that makes the air raise, and draws in more air. The friction heat between the layers of air will also contribute to heating the air and further cause updraft. I don't know why these effects are never mentioned. It is just simple physics.
@@runeaanderaa6840 maybe you should make a video explaining what you know... i was more intrigued with your explanation than the video.. it was still a knowledgeable video though
In New England though we rarely get tornadoes, a few years go, we had 4. One of those 4 was an Ef3 winds of 165+. It was enough to take down 3 buildings the town was considering taking down anyway.We had 3 downtown, andone was so violent it was enough to spawn another tornado uptown, it was an EF1, and alkl it did was take down some signs which were never seen again.
I do have to say, though, that it's not correct to say that tornadoes always travel in a basically straight line. Look up the paths of tornadoes like the Elie, Manitoba tornado, and many others that take hard right or left turns, whether or not they're multi-vortex. The Jarrell, TX tornado from 1997 changed direction. And if you want a large, multi-vortex tornado that is the very essence of 'not a straight line', look at the path of the 2013 El Reno tornado.
He never said that tornados don't change directions, he just said that observed "hop" or "slither" damage paths are not caused by changes in direction of the parent tornado, but by vortices within it.
@@Wes4Trump What's bs about it? Look up Leigh Orf's "10-m resolution quarter trillion gridpoint tornadic supercell simulation". In that you can clearly see how the tornado is made of many many vortices and some of them are not even contained within the cone. Sometimes you'll get anticyclones that track along with the primary cyclone and get wrapped up into it.
I am a student studying the Mathematical modeling of Tornadoes. Is it possible to send me a link to the pdf version of your explanation of tornado formation. I have picked a lot of interest in your study
Worlds tiniest correction: The counter clockwise rotation is considered to be cyclonic rotation while the clockwise rotation is considered to be anti cyclonic.
Some tornadoes do hop (touch down, lift up and back down) and some sweep lol. He should say, not all tornadoes do this, as they do some crazy things. He acts as if he knows it all, but i assure you he doesn't, and its evident in his information. He sounds like he read a tornado for dummies book and is doing a report 😂
What kind of updraft does it take to loft hail the size of softballs. Imagine being caught out and hailstones that size start thumping the ground around you knowing its only time before one has your name on it. Serious goose egg.
That footage at 4:00, with the inky black tendrils of the wall cloud spinning up is terrifying and mezmerizing. I thought we were seeing vortices dancing around for a second, anyone know the source for this footage? I'd like to watch it in its entirety.
ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-TqGV8qOfRPo.html This is a case study of that event, it shows the entire synoptic situation and the specific storm
That's the cockpit of his time traveling storm chasing spaceship. Bro is obviously from the future seeing how this is from 3 years ago, in 2021, but the so called most powerful tornado in recorded history is from last year (supposedly).
Very well done. This video is very complete and simplified many of the complex interactions which generate such weather events: and very comprehensive as well. I thought the presenter did a great job - enthusiastic, nicely delivered, making a mega enjoyable documentary. Awesome effort! Thanks!
cool.. while i watched a lot of tornado content its never been explained to me like this.. maybe this is from old documentaries but they often say for example that its still a mystery why some supercells produce tornados and some not. I cant imagine this being the case if the basic mechanism is known..
@Wondrium: This guy is not making a very important distinction which has to be made: In the northern hemisphere, counter clockwise is cyclonic and clockwise is anti cyclonic. In the Southern Hemisphere, it’s the opposite. I can’t believe this has to be said. Dude is speaking with an American accent, which means northern hemisphere. You need to insert a graphic to clarify this for viewers who, going by the comments, haven’t a clue about this.
It’s more than large air masses crashing into each other 1:44 A Wall Cloud Forms at lower and lower altitudes 4:14 Funnel cloud cone’s the cloud into a Tornado Rain 🌧 in the rear 5:31 The Rear Flank creates The Tornado 🌪 7:03 30% of Supercells produce Tornadoes 7:16 Tornadoes are few in November 8:39 Debris 💥 🌪
The graphic regarding the F/EF Scale is off. EF Rating: 0 65-85 mph 1 86-110 mph 2 111-135 mph 3 136-165 mph 4 166-200 mph 5 Over 200 mph Reference: The Enhanced Fujita Scale (EF Scale) via the National Weather Service Web site.
This also explains the essential FLAW in the EF scale. Windspeeds should be quite pertinent as well as damage intensity. El Reno May 31 2013 and Philadelphia, MS April 27 2011 are the perfect examples of this. He said in this video that in an open field damage from an EF1 would be the same as an EF5 because theres nothing to hit. That's completely FALSE! The Philadelphia, MS tornado dug trenches TWO FEET DEEP in the ground and RIGHTFULLY received an EF5 rating. Thats something no Ef1, 2, 3, or 4 could ever do. The El Reno is another example. Windspeeds WERE INDEED RECORDED that day at ovet 296mph, the second fastest on record. That tornado had multiple vorteces and crushed vehicles like soda cans. However it was downgraded to an EF3, because it didnt hit main structures, which is ridiculous. If a DOW is on the scene to record windspeeds, that shouod alao be applied to the ratings, not damage intensity alone. Scientists have been wrong before. Like the myth that vertical wind shear was needed for a tornado to form. The Jarrell tornado proved them DEAD wrong.
The info is good but it should be coupled with wisdom. If you have to be out there... It is better to chase than to be chased.... If you think you have a chance to out run it try a right angle from its path and if all else fails do your best to be a gopher.
I still don't understand why the scale is based on damage when we have technology that correctly measures windspeed. Are those scales only used by insurance companies or something?
But the Moore 2013 tornado went against parts of this. The Tornado began the signature left turn at the end of its life, when it begins to be absorbed by the supercell. However it “recycled” and essentially “looped”, or rolled over itself and continued to deal EF4/EF5 damage for a few more minutes before finally dissipating.
Tornados are electric, meaning Ionic processes. They spin in accordance with the right-hand rule, so as the northern hemisphere is a negative electrical system, tornadoes and hurricanes, which are electric too, spin counter-clockwise. There is so much to unlearn.
6:22 caught a minor typographical error! Conterclockwise is cyclonic rotation in the northern hemisphere, the clockwise one that often dissipates is the anti-cyclonic. Unless you are below the equator :)
interesting. Thanks. An analagy with tornadoes in wind and fire is in water. Called kilks or any vortex. Seems same equation. I wonder if its not as complicated as presented. Just ba vortex is created from a horizontal original blowing.
I always wondered how the cold air falls, and how the warm air rises when the ground and homes are in the way. It makes sense now, tje pressure changes and makes your ears pop. The jet stream blowing the tops off. The air has to go somewhere, its just the power and size of mother nature. Convection on a planet sized scale is powerful to us small people.
So does some debris go upwards with the warm outer wall of the tornado then fall down the cooler center of the tornado? Of course i know some things get picked up and fly out of the tornado like a planet orbiting the sun. Ibe notice how some tornado tracks over homes seemed to have the broken pieces of the homes all blown towards the same direction from their foundation almost like domino's falling in one direction. Im thinking it scoops up everything, mixes it up then blows it down the center and lands in the direction the tornado traveled. It might help people find more of their belongings after a tornado. Amd I've only seen this on weaker tornadoes, ive seen photos of EF5 Slabbed homes, and the debris from the homes was nowhere in sight for miles.
The only way I could believe this “horizontally rotating tube that has been tilted into the vertical” theory is if we’ve been able to model this phenomenon in fluid dynamics software. How about that researcher at the University of Wisconsin - have his models produced data that supports this theory?
DOW was not a replacement for probes. DOW has a 20mph +\- tolerance, so it’s not exactly the most accurate. Probes are still the most accurate measurements for wind speeds and structure. Reed Timmer has rockets that deploy parachutes with probes attached that fall through the column and map out the internal structure.
You say stay in. Your vehicle but that's not a good idea in my view especially if the fuel tank is ruptured or the car is thrown around etc I'd rather take my chances in a ditch 🤗
