F5 Tornado vs. a City of 100,000 - The 1966 Topeka F5 Tornado Documentary

What's going on everyone? Welcome back to the channel. Today we're going over the F5 slash EF5 slash IF5 tornado iceberg. What does that mean? Well, in case you're unfamiliar, the Fujita 5, or enhanced Fujita 5, is the highest rating a tornado can receive. These are the most destructive tornadoes of all time. These events are truly insane with wind speeds over 200 miles per hour, and we're going to list them on an iceberg. An iceberg, if you're unfamiliar, means that the events at the top, up towards the surface, they're a little more well known. People talk about them a lot. There's a lot of history, there's a lot of data on them, so we know about them. But the further down we go, the more obscure they become. Perhaps some of the tornadoes towards the bottom of the list happened a long time ago and people forgot about them. Perhaps they occurred in the location, like Italy or France. By the way, quick disclaimer, we're mostly talking about official EF5 slash F5 slash IF5 tornadoes. We will mention a few unofficial tornadoes, a few historic tornadoes that were likely F5 tornadoes, but I'm also going to skip over a ton of super, super old tornadoes because there's just not enough information about this. Anyway, we're just going to go ahead and start on the surface. These events, pretty much everyone knows about. Even people who aren't really into tornadoes know about these events. We're going to start off with what I believe is the most well-known tornado event, and that is the May 22, 2011 Joplin EF5. This very powerful wedge rain-wrapped tornado tore through the southern portion of Joplin on graduation Sunday, causing 158 direct fatalities, plus another eight indirect fatalities. 158 fatalities is a staggering number for a somewhat recent tornado. As you get on this list, you're going to hear about tornado events that had over 100 fatalities, but pretty much all of them occurred before 1950. To have a tornado event that was somewhat recent have 158 fatalities is truly staggering. In fact, this is the highest death toll since 1953. This tornado lasted 46 minutes and caused over $2.8 billion worth of damage, making it the costliest tornado of all time. One factor that made this tornado so dangerous was that it was rain-wrapped. You couldn't see it coming. There's this video of someone looking directly at the tornado, and it just looks like blackness because there's just so much rain, you can't actually see it coming, which is terrifying to think about. Definitely one of the most well-known EF5 tornadoes of all time. Moving on to another infamous F5, perhaps the second most well-known F5 tornado of all time, the May 3, 1999 Bridge Creek Moore F5 tornado. This tornado is seriously like if there was a movie, like an action movie, disaster movie, it would be this tornado because it tore right through the southern portions of Oklahoma City, specifically from Bridge Creek through Moore up past Dell City. This specific tornado may be the most powerful tornado of all time, at least one of the most powerful, because it had wind speeds estimated to be between 300 and 320 miles per hour, an absolutely insane number. Overall, there were 36 fatalities. This was the deadliest tornado since 1979, and it was kind of a worst case scenario tornado. Same with Joplin. I mean, it was a huge, strong, powerful EF5 tornado in a densely populated area. Like Joplin, this tornado also has a lot of lore. There's the overpass lore where there were several fatalities beneath overpasses. There's the tornado baby where a police officer found a baby in the mud. The baby survived, so that's great news. Helping to increase the awareness of this tornado is the incredible footage from Gary England and Mike Morgan. There's some absolutely ridiculous live coverage. Number three on the list actually occurred over the exact same location, southern Oklahoma City, but this time on May 20, 2013. I'm talking about the EF5 that traveled from Newcastle all the way up through Moore. This is also the last EF5 as of the making of this video. This specific tornado had wind speeds around 210 miles per hour, causing 24 direct fatalities. It was a costly tornado as well, causing over two billion dollars worth of destruction, making it one of the costliest of all time. Now, number four is an honorable mention, and that is the El Reno EF3. Now, this isn't an EF5, but it is still one of the most famous tornadoes of all time because, one, it's the largest tornado ever recorded at two and a half miles wide. It's also one of the most powerful tornadoes ever recorded with wind speeds over 300 miles per hour. It's kind of like a super tornado, and it happened just after the Moore tornado that we just talked about, so people were already, you know, had heightened anxiety with tornadoes. There were eight fatalities, including the Twist X storm chasing team. All eight fatalities were in cars. That concludes the surface layer. Pretty much everyone knows about these tornadoes, but now we're going down to layer one, beneath the surface. These tornado events are known by tornado enthusiasts. Some people who are into tornadoes might have heard of a couple of these, but if you're really into tornadoes, you've probably heard of all these events, and we're going to start off with the May 27, 1997, Gerald F5 tornado, the Dead Man Walking tornado. This tornado is kind of significant because it went right along Interstate 35, parallel to Interstate 35, backwards from most tornadoes. It started off as a little rope, and it slowly transitioned into a monster wedge tornado. Now, it didn't hit the town of Gerald itself, but it did hit a subdivision known as Double Creek Estates. Within Double Creek Estates, 27 people lost their lives. It's one of the most destructive tornadoes of all time because it was so slow moving. Obviously, it had high wind speeds. It was an F5 tornado, but it was just so slow that it sat on top of Double Creek Estates. It's known as the Dead Man Walking tornado because Scott Beckwith took a photo of it transitioning from a rope into a wedge, and in his photograph, there appears to be a figure walking on the ground. A pretty eerie photo. Now, so far, we've covered many tragic events, and we're going to cover many more tragic events, but before we get to that, I want to kind of take a break, have a little bit of a light-hearted moment to talk about today's video sponsor, MANSCAPED. 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The kit also comes with two free gifts, the Boxers 2.0 and the Shed Travel Bag. It's a perfect gift if you want to get it for someone, but it's also perfect for yourself. I mean, you got to stay trimmed and you can get it today, 20% off using promo code SWEGLE at manscaped.com. And there's also free international shipping. That's promo code SWEGLE for 20% off. Thank you so much to Manscaped for sponsoring this video. The next event is the May 4th, 2007 Greensburg, Kansas EF-5. The very first EF-5. This was a nocturnal tornado that completely destroyed the town of Greenfield, Kansas. Like, just look at this destruction. It's pretty much the entire town. There's great coverage of this event from Dave Freeman. He's yelling at the TV. He says, hey, if you're a kid, turn the volume up, go to the basement. If you're home alone, he does a really great job. It's actually some of my favorite tornado coverage. Overall, there were 11 fatalities. Next up is the April 26th, 1991 Andover, Kansas EF-5. This event occurred on the outskirts of Wichita and caused 17 fatalities and 225 injuries. Now, this event has some incredible footage. It was a very picturesque cone tornado, and there's some great video from Duke Evans. And of course, we can't forget about the McConnell Air Force Base footage, which is some of the most incredible tornado footage of all time. It caused $300 million worth of damage, but it could have been a lot worse. In fact, it could have been the costliest tornado of all time because it almost took out a row of B-1B bombers, each worth $280 million each. So if it took out this row, I mean, that's billions of dollars worth of damage. Two of these bombers, by the way, had nuclear bombs equipped to them. So close call for sure. One amazing story from this tornado is the Golden Spur Mobile Home Park. The tornado directly hit this mobile home park, but moments before it did, the police went in and like yelled at everyone and told them to take cover, to seek shelter, to get out of the mobile home park. And they likely saved maybe over a hundred lives. Next up is the 2011 Phil Campbell Heckelberg Alabama EF5 from the April 27th super outbreak. This super outbreak was insane. It was one of the most insane weather events ever. Over 360 confirmed tornadoes, including four EF5s. Now the most famous tornado from this day is probably the Phil Campbell Heckelberg EF5. This specific tornado resulted in 72 fatalities, making it the deadliest tornado to ever hit Alabama. The other famous tornado from this event is the Tuscaloosa Birmingham EF4. Now it's an EF4 so it doesn't count for today's list, but that also had a pretty high death toll. Not only was it very deadly, it also lasted two and a half hours traveling an incredible 132 miles. Most of the intense damage was over Heckelberg and Phil Campbell, but the communities of Mount Hope, Moulton, Trinity, and Tanner were also heavily impacted. Going from one super outbreak to another, the next event on our list is from the April 3rd 1974 super outbreak. We're specifically looking at the Zena Ohio EF6. Okay, there's no such thing as an EF6, but this was actually preliminary rated as an EF6 from Ted Fujita. Definitely one of the most powerful tornadoes of all time. There were 34 fatalities and over 1,000 injuries. Winds could have been as high as 300 miles per hour. It was featured in one of the very first home videos of a tornado captured by 16-year-old Bruce Boyd on his 8mm film camera. We'll get to the other six F5 tornadoes from this event further down the list, but now we're going to a kind of a good tornado. I don't know if you can say a good tornado, but we're going to one of the best tornadoes of all time. The beautiful June 22nd Ile Manitoba Canada F5. Canada's only F5. This is also the last F5 as Canada would adopt the EF5 scale after this event. Why is this a good tornado? Well, one, it was absolutely gorgeous. I mean, look how beautiful this is. Two, it didn't kill anyone and it didn't even injure anyone. It's just a great tornado, a beautiful tornado. It did destroy a couple homes right here, which justified the F5 rating, but overall a pretty tame event. This photo of the Ile F5 is pretty famous. In fact, it is the default pic for the tornado Wikipedia page. I went to check to see if there were some remnants from this tornado and there is. In fact, here is, see this little concrete pad right here and see this? This is one of the original driveways. So there are some remnants from this event, but we're going to move on to the May 25th 1955 Udaw Kansas F5. Part of a larger tornado outbreak that featured another F5 that we'll talk about later. This nocturnal tornado tore through the town of Udaw Kansas near the Oklahoma and Kansas border. This is the deadliest tornado in the history of Kansas with 80 fatalities and 273 injuries. So Kansas is known for having large violent tornadoes and this is the deadliest of all time. Truly a tragic event. Next up is the May 25th Parkersburg New Hartford, Iowa EF5. A more tame EF5 with wind speeds around 205 miles per hour, but there were nine fatalities and usually tornado events in Iowa have lower fatalities because Iowans have basements. This is another graduation Sunday F5 tornado similar to Joplin. In fact, there's a really famous video of a graduation party and it's a pretty terrifying video. If you haven't seen it, you should check it out. Like Joplin, it was also rain wrapped, so there's not really great footage of this event. There is the bank footage. I don't know if you've ever seen the bank footage and there's also that one house being destroyed. People have called this the forgotten F5, but I think it's gained a lot more attention in recent years. So to me, it's still just beneath the surface. I did visit Parkersburg recently and I did film some of the remnants, so be sure to check out that video if you haven't. We're going way back in time again with the next F5 on our list. The May 11th 1953 Waco, Texas F5 that resulted in a staggering 114 deaths and 597 injuries. This was the deadliest tornado event before Joplin. It's also the deadliest tornado in Texas history. This tornado tore right through downtown Waco. In one building alone, the R.T. Dennis building, 30 people lost their lives. Next up is kind of a mysterious F5 and that is the August 28th 1990 Plainfield F5. The Chicago suburb F5 and the only F5 to occur in August. Well, the only official F5 to occur in August. It's also the only F5 to strike near Chicago. Now what's interesting about this event, what's mysterious about this event, is that there's no footage or photographs of this tornado. It's kind of a lost media event. It didn't happen in the middle of the night. It happened in the afternoon. Think about the Andover tornado that we already talked about. There's tons of footage of that. It happened during a time when everyone had camcorders, yet there's still no footage. If you live near Chicago or if you live near Plainfield, be sure to ask your parents about this event. Ask your grandparents about this event and see if they have any footage. Overall, it killed 29 people and injured 353 with wind speeds over 260 miles per hour. Next up is the infamous March 18th 1925 tri-state tornado. The deadliest tornado in U.S. history with at least 695 deaths, but it's likely much higher than that. There were also over 2,000 injuries. Now this enigmatic tornado traveled over 219 miles lasting three hours and 45 minutes breaking all sorts of records. It traveled from Missouri through Illinois up into Indiana. People are skeptical about this tornado because it happened literally a hundred years ago and it could have been a series of tornadoes, you know, from the same supercell storm. So all these records technically might not be legit, but for now it holds these records. Also, this tornado technically does not have an official EFI rating because it occurred so long ago, but we're still going to include it on this list. Getting close to the bottom of level one, we have the June 20th 1957 Fargo F5 with 11 fatalities and over a hundred injuries, making it the deadliest in North Dakota history. Wind speeds were estimated to be over 275 miles per hour. Most of the fatalities occurred within the Golden Ridge neighborhood, including six deaths all from one family, the Munson family. This tornado is also famous for being heavily studied by Ted Fujita himself. He even kind of recreated this animation of the tornado using photographs. I don't understand how this tornado has this many photographs and the Plainfield F5 has no photographs. Someone needs to find a photograph of the Plainfield F5. But the last one in this layer is the April 8th 1998 Birmingham, Alabama Nocturnal F5 with 32 fatalities and 260 injuries. This tornado hit the northern suburbs of Oak Grove, McDonald Chapel, and Rock Creek. By the way, the northern suburbs of are a tornado magnet, even more so than Moore, Oklahoma. So many extremely powerful tornadoes have hit the northern suburbs of Birmingham. Now we move on to level two into deeper waters. Things are getting a little more obscure. Some of these events are a little older, so people might not remember them as well. Some of these might be considered forgotten F5s, but if you're a tornado enthusiast, you likely still know about these tornadoes. The first event is the Smithville to Philadelphia Mississippi EF5 from April 27th 2011. This was also part of the 2011 super outbreak. It resulted in 23 deaths, 137 injuries, and had wind speeds over 200 miles per hour. This was Mississippi's big EF5 from the super outbreak. But the next event is the March 3rd 1966 Candlestick Park Shopping Center F5 that occurred in Jackson, Mississippi. Overall there is a second deadliest and worst tornado before the Smithville Philadelphia Mississippi tornado. Going up to the Kansas Missouri border with the May 20th 1957 Ruskin Heights F5 with 44 fatalities and 531 injuries. This is a Kansas City F5 tornado and it has a famous eerie photo. This photo right here. Older photos always look a little more creepy, but this one is a little more creepy than most of them. It's estimated that this tornado had wind speeds over 261 miles per hour and that it lasted an hour and a half. Next up is the infamous May 11th 1970 Lubbock Texas F5 tornado which caused 26 fatalities and over 1500 injuries. This was an extremely powerful tornado which actually had an F6 rating kind of like Xena. This is one of those unique tornadoes that almost had an F6 rating which is crazy, but it's estimated that it had wind speeds over 300 miles per hour. It also struck the downtown of a relatively big city causing the foundation of the Great Plains Life Building Tower to twist. Remnants can still be seen on the brick to this day. The next tornado gets the forgotten EF5 title all the time and that is the El Reno Piedmont Oklahoma F5 that occurred on May 24th 2011. It's pretty obvious why this might be a forgotten F5 it's because it occurred two days after Joplin. Obviously the horrific 2011 Joplin F5 with 160 fatalities got more attention than this although this event still had nine fatalities and 181 injuries. Wind speeds were at least 210 miles per hour but they could have been as high as 300. Overall it traveled 63 miles. Next up we go back to Iowa with the June 13th 1976 Jordan F5. This tornado pretty much created a ghost town the ghost town of Jordan, Iowa which is right next to Ames. Ted Fujita the tornado man himself said that this was the most intense tornado he had ever surveyed which says a lot. I mean this guy saw a lot of tornadoes. Thankfully it occurred in a pretty remote part of the state out in the middle of the field and no one was killed. It is known though for having some pretty incredible footage. On that exact same day June 13th but eight years earlier we have the Tracy Minnesota F5 with nine fatalities and 125 injuries. Now Tracy Minnesota is this little small town over here in western Minnesota. During this event over 100 homes were destroyed and there's a photo of this tornado that is pretty famous because it looks pretty ridiculous. Perhaps you've seen it but this was also the very first official F5 to occur in Minnesota. Right next to Minnesota is the state of Wisconsin and the next event on our list occurred in Wisconsin and I'm talking about the Barneveld Black Earth Wisconsin 1984 F5 with nine fatalities and 200 injuries. This tornado is the nocturnal tornado. I already talked about this in a previous video that I just did the nocturnal tornado video so if you want to know more about this event be sure to check out that video. Moving on to the 1964 Wichita Falls Texas F5. This tornadic event had wind speeds over 260 miles per hour and it lasted a long time two and a half hours. There were seven fatalities and 111 injuries. Now this is not to be confused with an F4 that hit the same area in 1979. Some of the worst damage was seen in the Lincoln Heights subdivision where 200 homes were completely destroyed. This tornado also hit Shepard Air Force Base scattering debris across four runways. Moving on we have the June 8th 1966 Topeka Kansas F5. This tornado is actually insane. I mean this is like a worst case scenario tornado a massive F5 tornado through a highly populated city. Overall there were 16 fatalities and 450 injuries. This tornado tore right through downtown Topeka. You've probably heard of Topeka like this this is a big deal. What's crazy is there are many people who believe that if this had happened during work hours like when people were downtown there could have been as many as 5,000 fatalities. One miraculous survivor from this event was a reporter named Rick Douglas who took shelter underneath an overpass and became airborne. He was blown over a block away. He was then knocked out and believed to have perished when medics arrived at the scene but miraculously he woke up and survived. There were no tornado sirens the only warning came from Bill Curtis who urged people to take cover over the radio. He is credited with saving many lives that day. Perhaps you've seen the many crazy photos of this tornado. Next up is the mysterious glowing Blackwell Oklahoma F5 from the same day as the UDOT Kansas F5 we talked about earlier May 25th 1955. During this event there were 20 fatalities and over 200 injuries. It just barely struck the east side of Blackwell right through here but what's interesting about this event is apparently it glowed in the dark like there was an orb at the top of the funnel. It's one of the craziest phenomena ever. Some people don't believe it actually happened. I also recently talked about this in my nocturnal tornado video so be sure to check that out. Moving on to the F5 that went directly through the center of Charles City Iowa on May 15th 1968. One of Iowa's most significant tornado events. A powerful tornado that some claim could have had wind speeds over 300 miles per hour. This tornado claimed 13 lives and injured over 450 all within Charles City. Overall 1,250 homes were destroyed. Next up is the Flint Beecher Michigan F5 from 1953. 1953 was a terrible year for tornadoes and this tornado is just one example. It hit the northern side of Flint in the suburb of Beecher claiming a staggering 116 lives making it one of the deadliest in U.S. history. In fact it is the deadliest tornado in Michigan's history. It also injured over a thousand. This was part of a huge tornado outbreak that also included the Worcester Massachusetts F4 tornado. This was technically an F5 back in the day. It was downgraded to an F4 so it's not on today's list but this was a strong F4 and it occurred in Massachusetts which is like insane. We now move on to another infamous Birmingham Alabama tornado the April 4th 1977 Birmingham F5 that claimed 22 lives and injured over 130. It hit that same part of Birmingham I was talking about earlier that northern part of Birmingham. This area truly is a tornado magnet. This is the final tornado event that was briefly considered an F6 by Ted Fujita. One interesting lore about this tornado is that the supercell that caused this tornado also caused the crash of Southern Airways flight 242 which claimed 72 lives. Next up we have another Wisconsin F5 the most recent Wisconsin F5 the July 18th 1996 Oakfield tornado with no fatalities which is great you always want to hear that but there were 17 injuries. 47 of the 327 homes in Oakfield were completely destroyed. Four were completely wiped from their foundations justifying the F5 rating. Sticking to the north we move on to the June 16th 1992 Chandler Minnesota F5. This is a bit of a forgotten F5 I think. I mean I hardly hear people talk about this but it was a very powerful trend with winds near 300 miles per hour. Thankfully there was only one fatality. The tornado mainly impacted the towns of Chandler and Lake Wilson near southwest Minnesota. Next up is a pretty big one the 1971 Inverness Mississippi F5 that occurred early in the year on February 21st. This tornado claimed 48 lives and injured over 500 as it tore through Louisiana across the Mississippi River into Mississippi destroying 90 percent of Inverness. This is a disputed F5 as a lot of the buildings that were destroyed were low-income housing that were not properly built but still it is technically an F5. In fact it's Louisiana's only F5 tornado. By the way this occurred very close to Rolling Fork. Next up is another large one the Glazer Texas Higgins Texas and Woodward Oklahoma F5 of April 9th 1947. This tornado event caused 184 fatalities making it one of the deadliest we've covered so far. There were also nearly a thousand injuries mostly in Woodward Oklahoma. This event is known for the mysterious Joan Gaycroft disappearance. Apparently there was a girl who got injured and like in her knee or something but nothing super serious like she got injured and then she was brought to the local doctor's office and then in the middle of the night apparently a bunch of guys took her away to a hospital in Oklahoma City and she hasn't been seen since. So it's kind of a bit of a tornado mystery but she's probably was actually injured pretty bad and she probably passed away. There were also three unmarked graves of unknown victims. The Woodward Oklahoma F5 is the deadliest tornado in Oklahoma history. Going back to Mississippi we have reached the Tupelo Mississippi F5 that occurred on April 5th 1936. This event claimed 233 fatalities one of the deadliest on record. In fact it is the number four deadliest tornado in U.S. history. It was a late 8 30 p.m. nocturnal tornado which made it even more dangerous. Elvis Presley and his parents survived this storm. The final tornado of this tier is the oldest so far in today's video and that is the August 21st 1883 Rochester Minnesota tornado. Maybe the greatest tornado of all time even though it did claim 37 lives but it did lead to the creation of St. Mary's Hospital which then transformed into the Mayo Clinic. So this tornado indirectly caused one of the most famous hospitals in the world to be created and that hospital saved thousands and thousands of lives. So kind of a good tornado I guess. Moving on to level three even deeper waters. Now these tornadoes are even more obscure at least to me like many of these I had never even heard of. Some of these events occurred a while ago and some of them are just not really talked about. Starting off with the first event now maybe this event is more famous than I'm giving it credit for. I just feel like not many people talk about this event. Maybe I'm wrong. It's a pretty recent event as it occurred on March 13th 1990. Now this is two separate F5 tornadoes that are kind of from the same family. The Heston tornado initially started off weak and skinny but then reorganized into a tall F5 monster with wind speeds over 300 miles per hour and then tore through the town of Heston destroying over 200 homes many of which were left only with the slab. Then a satellite tornado formed and right when this satellite tornado formed this tornado quickly dissipated and then that satellite tornado turned into a huge monster and was the Goessel tornado that also caused extreme F5 damage. One expert said that the wind speeds could have been as high as 350 miles per hour making it one of the most intense weather events ever recorded if that's true. I don't know why I just mean this seems like a pretty big tornado event. I don't know why I haven't really heard of it. We're moving on to the rather controversial April 2nd 1982 Broken Bow Oklahoma F5. There were no deaths thankfully but there were 29 injuries. Now it's controversial because the evidence of F5 damage came from this photo and later analysis state that this home wasn't properly built and that this tornado should be downgraded to an F4. So I don't know but we're gonna move on to the Grand Rapids Michigan F5 that occurred on April 3rd 1956. There were 18 fatalities over the northern and western suburbs of Grand Rapids Michigan. F5 damage was documented in Hudsonville and Standall and is the fourth deadliest in Michigan history and the most recent F5 to occur inside the state. Next on the list is the other April 27th 2011 super outbreak tornadoes the Philadelphia Mississippi tornado with three fatalities and the Rainsville tornado with 25 fatalities. Now if the Rainsville tornado had occurred on a separate day during a separate event it would probably be a pretty well-known tornado event but since it occurred with the super outbreak it's overshadowed by the other tornadoes. Sticking with the theme we're also going to talk about the other April 3rd 1974 F5s. There was the Dupal Daisy Hill Indiana F5 with six fatalities, the Brandenburg to Kentucky F5 with 31 fatalities, the Sailor Park Cincinnati F5 with three fatalities, the Gwinn Alabama F5 with 28 fatalities, and two separate F5 tornadoes that both struck Tanner Alabama. The first one caused 28 fatalities and the second one caused 16 fatalities. Moving out of the super outbreaks we have the intriguing May 31st 1985 Niles Ohio F5 tornado that would cross into Pennsylvania and hit the town of Wheatland. Overall there were 18 fatalities and 310 injuries. This is the only F5 tornado to ever hit Pennsylvania. It's also the most recent F5 to hit Ohio. Back to that awful year of 1953 with the F5 that hit Vicksburg Mississippi on December 5th, a very late in the year event. I mean this is a December tornado like it's almost December 5th right now so you're never in the clear when it comes to F5 tornadoes. Now this tornado initially formed over Louisiana and then crossed the Mississippi River where it tore through Vicksburg destroying 1,200 buildings claiming 38 lives and injuring 270. This was a quick tornado it only lasted nine minutes. The rating is also disputed with this tornado as are many ratings in the state of Mississippi. Next up is one of Wisconsin's worst F5 tornadoes the 1958 Colfax F5 that occurred on June 4th resulting in 21 fatalities and 110 injuries. This is one of Wisconsin's worst tornadoes. It's also the first official F5 before the Barneville F5 in 1984. We're going back to Oklahoma. We knew it was only a matter of time before we'd end up back in Oklahoma. It is the tornado state along with Kansas but with Oklahoma is our next entry the March 26 1976 Spiro Oklahoma F5. This tornado thankfully only claimed two lives but it did injure quite a few 64 individuals and sparked a larger tornado outbreak with 24 other confirmed tornadoes. Now we have made it to a true forgotten F5 the April 16 1998 Middle Tennessee F5. This is cited as the forgotten F5 by a lot of people. This tornado tore through Lawrence County injuring 20. Thankfully it didn't claim any lives. There's a few reasons why so many people forget about this F5 the biggest one being that Nashville Tennessee got hit by an F3 tornado on the same day. Obviously Nashville is a you know big city and that tornado got a lot of attention. It also claimed one life. Another reason why this tornado doesn't get very much attention is because in 1997 you had Gerald and in 1999 you had Bridge Creek so it's surrounded by two other major tornado events. So yes it's the forgotten F5. We're now going to December again December 18th which is like really late in the year for a tornado. December 18th 1957 with the Sunfield Illinois Christmas F5 which is crazy because this is in Illinois this isn't even in the south so this is a Midwest December tornado. Now this specific town Sunfield Illinois was a very small little intersection town as you can see right here. Unfortunately though this entire town was wiped completely off the map. It literally vanished off the face of the earth taking three lives in the process. So the next few entries happened over 100 years ago. We're going to kind of do a little historic F5 moment here starting with Wisconsin specifically New Richmond in 1899. We've talked about Wisconsin a few times but this is truly the worst recorded tornado to have ever hit the state. It occurred on June 12th 1899 and it hit west central Wisconsin specifically the town of New Richmond. Overall this F5 resulted in 117 fatalities making it the deadliest tornado in recorded history to hit Wisconsin. Now while it did pass right through the heart of New Richmond along its 46 mile path that mostly went through rural areas. Next up is another historic tornado the 1913 Omaha Nebraska Easter F5 tornado. A violent tornado that resulted in a staggering 103 fatalities. This tornado tore through the heart of Omaha into Iowa on March 23rd 1913 which was indeed Easter Sunday. Many have claimed that it was likely an EF4 but it has historically been rated as an F5 so it belongs on the list. There's also a photo of this tornado which is pretty crazy since it happened over 100 years ago. Interestingly this tornado led the city to build tornado proof buildings including this u-shaped bank building that was built in 1916. The next three F5 tornadoes all came within a super outbreak that occurred between May 5th and May 8th. Overall within these three days there were over 500 fatalities from tornadoes making it one of the worst recorded weeks in tornado history. The three F5 tornadoes are the Seneca Kansas to Fall City Nebraska F5, the St. Louis Missouri F5, and the Sherman Texas F5. Overall this event is one of those forgotten about super outbreaks but truly a tragic terrible week and hopefully we don't have anything like that anytime soon. Next up is the weird Valley Mills Texas F5 which occurred on May 6th 1973. This is definitely a forgotten about F5. It might not even be an F5. This tornado resulted in zero deaths and zero injuries and the F5 rating was given due to a truck being thrown over a half a mile. That's it, that somehow justified the F5 rating. It belongs in this tier because there's hardly any information about this tornado. In fact it probably wasn't even an F5 but officially it is so it's on the And with that we now move to level four truly obscure and unique F5 tornado events. The first one is very unique the San Justo Argentina F5 that occurred on January 10th 1973. This tornado resulted in 63 fatalities and tore straight through the city of San Justo. There are some reports that this tornado was red because a lot of the buildings were made out of a specific red brick that must be common in the area so all that powder all that debris made the tornado appear red. Pretty crazy. Also this was only recently upgraded to an F5 back in 2017. Dr. Ted Fujita did study this tornado and called it the worst tornado he had ever seen outside of the United States. Next up we enter the Iowa zone because we have several Iowa F5s to talk about. Iowa gets a lot of F5 tornadoes that's why they're number three on my tornado my state list and this past year had the Greenfield Iowa which maybe someday that could be upgraded to an F5 by the way. It's not on this list but now that I think about it it had measured wind speeds over 300 miles per hour so perhaps that will eventually be on this list. But anyway back to Iowa we're first talking about the Belmond Iowa F5 that occurred on October 14th 1966. Interestingly this is the only official F5 tornado to occur during the month of October. There were six deaths and 172 injuries. This occurred over north central Iowa with a 12 mile path. Thomas Grazulis the tornado historian has stated that he has issues with the official F5 rating of this tornado. He said most of the damage was F4 max. But sticking with Iowa we move ahead two years to the 1968 Old Wine F5 that occurred on the same day as the much more well-known Charles City F5 May 15th. This tornado resulted in five deaths and 156 injuries. After striking Old Wine this tornado curved to the north and hit the of Maynard so it's sometimes referred to as the Maynard Iowa F5. And of course we have yet another F5 in Iowa the June 27th 1953 Adair County Iowa F5 which thankfully only claimed one life. This is a pretty obscure F5 as it only destroyed a few farms but the farms that were destroyed were pretty much down to their foundation. We now leave Iowa and head over to the Prague slash Sepulpa Oklahoma F5 on May 5th 1960 that resulted in five fatalities and 81 injuries. This tornado was a long distance tornado traveling approximately 70 miles. It's described as a huge barrel-like white wedge. The community of Iron Post is where it received its F5 rating. Thankfully it lifted as a funnel right before it crossed into Tulsa. If a tornado like this with F5 strength crossed into Tulsa we would probably be much higher on the list and it would have been a really tragic event. Speaking of which Tulsa I feel like Tulsa kind of dodges tornadoes I feel like you know we talk so much about Oklahoma City more Norman even gets a lot of tornadoes but Tulsa I don't know maybe there's a little tornado protective bubble over Tulsa. We now visit the great state of Nebraska which I feel has been slightly underrepresented in the uh you know with F5 tornadoes which is a good thing because you know you don't want you don't want F5 tornadoes but Nebraska does get a lot of tornadoes so I'm a bit surprised that there hasn't been more on the list but I'm specifically talking about the May 5th 1964 Bradshaw F5 that resulted in four fatalities. This tornado has an estimated wind speed well over 260 miles per hour maybe as high as 300 miles per hour. It also traveled over 80 miles destroying every home in its path. Here's a picture of some of the damage to a home which you can barely see because it's completely wiped off its foundation clean. This by the way is the only official F5 tornado in Nebraska history. That Omaha one that we talked about earlier that's unofficial because it happened so long ago. Next up we travel to Europe and you're going to see a lot of European tornadoes coming up but the first one that we're going to talk about was the Palule I don't know how to pronounce that France F5 tornado on June 24th 1967. This was a very thin narrow drill press tornado but even though it was small it was still extremely powerful destroying 17 homes and claiming six lives. This is the most intense tornado to hit France since the next tornado on our list the Montville F5 of August 19th 1845 that claimed 75 lives and injured over 150. This specific tornado the Montville F5 may be one of the worst tornadoes in European history. Moving back to the U.S. with the May 10th 1905 Snyder Oklahoma F5 which resulted in 92 fatalities. This was a long path and duration F5 and it occurred at 9 p.m. after it was dark out so it was you know dangerous situation. The supercell actually produced two tornadoes the first one was pretty significant but the second one was much worse and it tore right through Snyder Oklahoma destroying a hundred homes. All communication was destroyed throughout the town so people had to walk to the nearest town to get help like no one had any idea that this had happened because it was 1905. This was the deadliest tornado in Oklahoma history until Woodward Oklahoma in 1947. Next up is the 1840 Natchez Mississippi tornado. People aren't exactly sure what region this is because it could be anything from an F2 all the way up to an F5 but it did claim over 300 lives mostly because it crossed over the Mississippi destroying a few boats tragically leading to a ton of drownings. It's the second deadliest tornado in U.S. history but like I said no one has any idea what the official rating or the official strength of this tornado was. We're moving ahead to a super outbreak the 1917 super outbreak that caused over 383 fatalities including one F5 in Kansas that destroyed hundreds of buildings causing 23 deaths. Next on the list is South Dakota with the 1965 Tripp County F5 the strongest tornado in South Dakota history. It occurred on May 8th and thankfully it only resulted in one injury. This was part of a much larger outbreak that exploded over most of central Nebraska. All in all there were 30 confirmed tornadoes. And we're back to Iowa with the June 6 1893 Pomeroy tornado which killed at least 70 individuals. The path of this tornado is pretty well documented as a lot of people were able to survey it after it tore through several communities. It even destroyed the Pilot Rock Bridge. I kind of want to go to where this bridge was to see if I can find any remnants this summer. It could be an interesting video. Let me know if you'd want to see that. Another interesting thing about this tornado are these illustrations which may be the first depictions of a multi-vortex tornado. The other Iowa tornado I want to mention is the June 17 1882 Grinnell, Iowa F5 which killed 39 individuals. This tornado tore through the center of Grinnell, Iowa and it directly hit Grinnell College. The Grinnell University yearbook is now called the Cyclone, a reference to this event. Next up we travel to central north Italy with the July 24th 1930 Montello IF-5. This event resulted in 23 fatalities and 110 injuries. Here is a depiction of a church that was heavily damaged with IF-4 strength. A rare European tornado but Italy does get its fair share of tornadoes because you see this you have a warm body of water you have some mountains to the west just like the Gulf of Mexico just like the Rocky Mountains and over this area you can get some pretty serious supercells. Finally we have made it to level five the deepest layer on today's iceberg. These are very obscure, very rare, very old including this first one that I want to talk about the October 23rd 1666 Lincolnshire UK F5. Maybe not officially an F5 the European Severe Storms Laboratory has given it a T9 which is more of a strong EF4 but I'm still putting it on this list because you know the UK needs a little bit of a representation. Thankfully there were only three fatalities. Speaking of international tornadoes we're going to visit the continent and country of Australia with the strange January 1st 1970 Baladea Baladella F5 tornado which occurred in Baladella State Forest. There were zero deaths there were zero injuries there's zero footage of this tornado but it did leave quite the path through a forest destroying millions of trees. It is believed to be the most powerful tornado ever documented in Australia. Back to the U.S. with the next entry on our list the Brownwood Texas April 19th 1976 F5 which had zero deaths and 11 injuries. This one is kind of at the bottom of the list because it probably was not an official F5 it was probably an F4. Historian Thomas Grazulis says that it was at most an F4 as only a few houses were destroyed and they weren't like completely destroyed down to their foundation. There's just not much information on this tornado it really is a forgotten F5. Now the next entry on the list is one that I find very fascinating one that I'll probably do a full video on eventually and that is the June 29th 1764 Uldrich Germany F5. Now there's only one confirmed fatality from this event but a scientist by the area and he surveyed the damage kind of like Tetujita did in the 60s and 70s and he has like really accurate illustrations of the damage. He even described a mansion a cobblestone mansion that was completely destroyed and this was like a well-built cobblestone mansion. Because of this the European Severe Storms Laboratory has officially given it a T11 Toro 11 aka an F5 with wind speeds likely over 300 miles per hour. A very fascinating tornado event. Finally we have the 1984 Soviet Union F4. Now this was previously an F5 and I remember when it was an F5 and I thought it was very fascinating when it was an F5 but it has recently been downgraded to an F4 by the European Severe Storms Laboratory but still this event may have had almost 400 fatalities. We don't really know much about it because Soviet Union but it did create a path in the woods and this path in the woods eventually turned into a village. But that concludes today's iceberg video. We went over many tornado events. I'm sure I missed several tornado events because there are just so many especially unofficial F5 tornadoes. Anyway thank you so much for watching and we'll see you in the next video.