2011-05-22 Joplin, MO tornado thread

[Jim Parsons]

2 days after Joplin(May 24) Piedmont, OK got hit by an F5....That might be what you saw. The Joplin storm fired up much closer to the OK, KS, MO border.

[zenith]

2 days after Joplin(May 24) Piedmont, OK got hit by an F5....That might be what you saw. The Joplin storm fired up much closer to the OK, KS, MO border.

Potentially. I just remember hearing that what I saw and what hit Joplin was around the same time. The areas I saw damage in were Dibble and Newcastle, OK. There was a house in Dibble that had most of its roof torn off and a fair number of walls that had been stripped of nearly everything but the frame, and debris lined the highway through Newcastle for miles.

[Shawn Schuman]

That was probably the result of the Goldsby and Chickasha EF4s, which passed near Dibble and Newcastle respectively. They actually both produced damage that was nearly (and, in the opinion of many, should have been) EF5 at some points along their paths. But more on topic, I don't think I've ever seen such widespread urban/suburban destruction than in Joplin. It wasn't even so much the degree of damage -- which was obviously extremely significant in itself -- but just the scale and density of destruction was staggering. Although they're obviously so different for many reasons that a comparison can't even be made, I think this lends some perspective: the Tri-State tornado is estimated to have destroyed somewhere between 12,000 and 15,000 homes along its 219 mile path. The Joplin tornado destroyed around 7,000 homes, most of them within about six miles.

[Joshua Nall]

If your curious to see the actual tornadoes that caused the damage you saw.... The First is the one that went near Newcastle, before it got to Newcastle. And the second was taken near Dibble. As stated though, this wasn't the same day as the Joplin tornado.

[zenith]

Thank you Josh and loco for the information and the photos. As for the statistics provided by loco...wow. Just wow. I wouldn't necessarily call it a fair comparison (mostly because the Tri-State tornado didn't really pass through larger towns and the Joplin tornado ripped through the core of a decently sized city) but it definitely helps to put things into some perspective.