The most destructive tornado in Kentucky's history, drone footage.

[bob10]

Didn't think I would see any thing worse than Darwin after Tracy. How anyone survived this tornado is beyond me.


Dozens Dead After 'Most Severe Tornado Event In Kentucky's History' | NPR - YouTube (https://youtu.be/zZMAmxP5cgs)

[Tins]

Didn't think I would see any thing worse than Darwin after Tracy. How anyone survived this tornado is beyond me.


Dozens Dead After 'Most Severe Tornado Event In Kentucky's History' | NPR - YouTube (https://youtu.be/zZMAmxP5cgs)

Main reason people survive is that tornadoes. while furiously powerful, are really quite localised, unlike cyclones. I once saw a pic in National Geographic that showed the path of one through a town. It looked as if someone had steered a path driving a 100 meter wide combine harvester. Everything in its path totally destroyed, everything else virtually untouched. Scary damn things.

[Tote]

Natures pretty awesome isn't it, just imagine if there hadn't been all that crap put there by humans, a few trees in the forest gone and a swathe of cleared land. Looking at most of those houses and knowing the construction techniques used in the US it isn't surprising. The centre of that town took a battering but those old brick buildings are probably over 100 years old with rusty ties (not) holding the masonry together.

Regards,
Tote

[JDNSW]

We had a severe tornado about 25 years ago, fortunately missing the house. (One about fifteen years ago didn't but was far milder).

You could see the track of it on the satellite pictures for years, and I'm still using the firewood!

[4bee]

Natures pretty awesome isn't it, just imagine if there hadn't been all that crap put there by humans, a few trees in the forest gone and a swathe of cleared land. Looking at most of those houses and knowing the construction techniques used in the US it isn't surprising. The centre of that town took a battering but those old brick buildings are probably over 100 years old with rusty ties (not) holding the masonry together.

Regards,
Tote



Also Tote, after a century mortar joints would be weakened so making it easy for those walls to be pulled apart.

[bob10]

Also Tote, after a century mortar joints would be weakened so making it easy for those walls to be pulled apart.

Mate , the winds were over 300 kmh. And that particular tornado was on the ground for 350 miles. A lot of those houses were not that old , it would be like trying to survive a nuclear burst. Horrifying.

[Tins]

Mate , the winds were over 300 kmh. And that particular tornado was on the ground for 350 miles. A lot of those houses were not that old , it would be like trying to survive a nuclear burst. Horrifying.

It's why all houses etc in the tornado belt have mandatory tornado shelters underground. Folk there know the destructive force of even an F2 twister. This thing was F5. In the movie Twister they describe F5 as "the Finger of God". If you get in its way...., well, don't get in its way. An F5 tornado is one of the most destructive natural forces on the planet. Luckily they are 'localised', rather than a cyclone/hurricane, earthquake or tsunami.

[Saitch]

"the Finger of God".

Didn't Monkey urinate on that?

[Tins]

Didn't Monkey urinate on that?

As in Magic? Possibly. The Librarian probably did.

[windsock]

The power in a wind is expressed as 0.5*air density*area*velocity cubed. Power in the wind from this equation is expressed in Watts (W).

Rho is air density at the location at the time of the incident wind.

Area is usually expressed as 1 square metre if discussing power density per sq m. If discussing power able to be exerted on an object... say a building, it would be the square metres of wall area receiving the full wind.

Velocity cubed is the kicker here. It is expressed as metres per second (divide kph by 3.6). As wind speed is cubed it is an exponential function and therefore small increases in speed equals increasingly larger increases in power.

Assume air density is 1.2 kg/m^3

Assume a vertical surface (e.g. a house wall 8m long and 3m high) = 24 sq m.

The wind was supposedly running at 190 mph = ~306kph = ~85m/s (Tornado Damage Survey Summaries (https://www.weather.gov/crh/dec112021))

0.5*1.2*24*(85*85*85) = 8,843,400W = 8,843kW = approx 11,859 US Horsepower in the wind at 306kph against a 24 sq m wall. As a power density it is ~368kW per sq m.

This is just a raw empirical figure of possible power available in a wind of that speed. Throw in debris and you have a giant grit-blaster/jack hammer/grinder.