Rare Tornadoes in Unlikely Locations

On July 23, 1987, the U.S. Forest Service discovered a peculiar sight in the Teton Wilderness, a national forest in western Wyoming. What they witnessed was a massive area of fallen trees. Over one million trees had been completely destroyed along a 25-mile path. Some sections of the destroyed path were over one and a half miles wide. Confused, they contacted the experts at the National Weather Service, who noted that just two days prior on July 21, western Wyoming had experienced a strong storm. The National Weather Service decided to send out a team of investigators to further study this path of destroyed trees. One man who was on said team was none other than Ted Fujita, certified tornado legend. After several surveys, Fujita and his team concluded that the 25-mile path was caused by a tornado. But not just any tornado, a large and violent F4. F4 tornadoes anywhere are rare, like even in the U.S. they're rare, but over western Wyoming, like that's almost unheard of. In the western United States, there's just a number of characteristics that operate against tornadoes. In fact, here's a map of all the violent F4 tornadoes in the U.S., and way over here is the Teton Wilderness F4. The tornado continues to hold many records, including both the strongest tornado ever recorded west of the Continental Divide and the highest altitude F4 tornado at over 10,000 feet in elevation. A similar tornado event in the Rocky Mountains probably occurs once every 150 years. In geographic regions where tornadoes seem unlikely, the atmosphere can still do some pretty crazy things. In rare instances, the right ingredients can come together and form large and even violent tornadoes. And that's what this video is about, rare tornadoes in unlikely locations. We're going all over the world, we're talking about Europe, we're talking about Canada, we're talking about the Southern Hemisphere, we're even going to talk about the middle of the ocean. But before we go all across the world, I want to start off here in the U.S. Of course, many of us have heard of Tornado Alley. There's also Dixie Alley, which is just as active, but not quite as well known. These areas by far get the most intense tornadoes on Earth. Looking back at that map from earlier, you can definitely see just how active Tornado and Dixie Alley are. But there still are a few twisters that are a bit out of place. Of course, we talked about the Teton Wilderness F4 from 1987, way out here, clearly out of place. But there's also a few notable examples to the east. One of these, the June 9th, 1953 Worcester Tornado, was actually once classified as an F5. However, a team of experts from the National Weather Service in 2005 deemed it to just be a strong F4. Nevertheless, the Worcester Tornado was a horrific event. Around 5pm, it plowed through the communities of Worcester, Shrewsbury, Southboro, and Westboro, destroying 4,000 buildings and taking the lives of 94 individuals. Looking back at our map, another unusually placed tornado is this super long-tracked F4 that crossed the entire state of Florida on April 5th, 1966. This storm resulted in 11 fatalities. The event is known as the Largo Clearwater Carolwood Temple Terrace Galloway Gibsonia Loman Tornado. It was a long-track tornado, we're talking 218 kilometers, so you're gonna have a lot of affected communities. The most affected of these communities was Gibsonia, where 7 fatalities occurred. Florida actually has more tornadoes per square mile than any other state, but when it comes to the super high-rated and intense tornadoes, they're quite rare. Moving on to the western United States, tornadoes are clearly way more uncommon. The reason the US has so many tornadoes to begin with is the unique geography created by the Gulf of Mexico and the Rocky Mountains. You get that warm moist air from the Gulf of Mexico, you get that cool dry air from the Rocky Mountains, they mix, you know, and tornadoes form. And west of the Rocky Mountains, you just don't get those unique conditions. However, if we show F3 tornadoes, a few pop up. And the most intriguing to me is the April 5th, 1972 Portland, Oregon, and Vancouver, Washington F3. Most of the severe damage occurred across the Columbia River on the Vancouver side where a bowling alley and even an elementary school were heavily damaged. All in all, there would be 6 fatalities. Alright, we're going to leave the US and we're going to head up north to our lovely neighbors, Canada. Canadian tornadoes are almost like their own distinctive class. There's something just so calm and beautiful about them. While Canada doesn't get nearly as many F5 tornadoes as the US, they can claim what might be the greatest F5 of all time, the 2007 Islay Manitoba F5. Why is it the greatest? Well, just look at how beautiful it is. Also, it didn't kill or injure anyone. So it might just be the goat tornado. Unfortunately, not all Canadian tornadoes are quite as great as the Islay F5. The Black Friday tornado was a rare far west F4 that claimed 27 lives and injured 300 on July 31st, 1985 over the city of Edmonton in central Alberta. It destroyed more than 300 homes and some of the images of this beast are quite terrifying. A lesser known Canadian tornado is the July 14th, 2000 Pine Lake tornado. This was an F3 that took the lives of 12 individuals, most of the fatalities occurring at the Green Acres Campground at Pine Lake, also located in central Alberta. We're about to head over to Europe, but before we do, a quick word from our sponsor, Factor. This is me. 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While the majority of the F4 strength was over open, rural areas, the towns of Ruska, Moravoska Nova Vej, Mikulsice, and Lusic were directly hit with EF3 strength, which in the end resulted in 6 fatalities. The tornado was the first EF4 strength tornado to occur in the Czech Republic and the deadliest to occur in Europe since 2001. Another EF4 strength tornado that recently occurred in Central Europe was the tornado that struck near Venice, Italy on July 8, 2015. This truly looks like it's something straight out of Kansas, but no, it occurred next to this. Pretty wild. This tornado resulted in one fatality. Another F4 hit northern France on August 3, 2008, resulting in 3 fatalities. Not much footage exists, but it did leave quite a path through the countryside. Germany has had a long history of tornadoes, including one of the earliest ever documented in 1587. In 1968, the British Pathé documented the damage caused by a large EF4 tornado that hit Pforzheim, Germany. This event has been referred to as the Black Forest Tornado. And I do want to quickly mention the recent EF3 that occurred between France and Belgium on October 23, 2022. Thankfully, there were zero deaths. Moving on to Eastern Europe. On June 9, 1984, a particularly strong EF4 tornado hit the Soviet Union. This tornado was actually once rated an EF5, but has recently been demoted. Either way, it was a very violent tornado that took at least 80 lives. This particular EF4 struck the regions of Ivanovo and Yaroslavl, about 150 miles north of Moscow, and it was just one of 11 tornadoes from that day. The overall death toll for all 11 tornadoes may have been close to 400, making it the third deadliest tornado outbreak in European history. One tornado from that day also left a scar in the forest that the Soviets later turned into villages. I did a short about it, you can check it out if you want. Speaking of tornado scars, one in an extreme location was recently found in far eastern Russia. Take a look at this on Google Earth. If you go back to 1980s satellite data, you can clearly see a well-defined path. In fact, you can even still see the remnants today. Wild. And look how out of place it is. Like, it's literally almost in Asia. And this path is thick, like El Reno thick. It measures out to be about 2.3 miles wide, making it potentially one of the largest tornadoes ever documented. This path was brought to my attention on Twitter by Krill Bakunov. It's estimated that this tornado could have occurred in the late 50s or early 60s. This to me is so interesting, if you know any more information about this, let me know. Since we're kind of in the neighborhood, take a look at Mongolia. I have every tornado turned on, so EF0 all the way through EF5, and there's literally just one documented tornado. And it's a powerful one. Another F4. I had no idea about this, but check it out. There's a video of it, and it's clearly a strong tornado. This tornado took place on July 26, 2014. It appears to be out in the middle of a desert plain. And there was also one fatality from it. Of course, we don't want to forget about the southern hemisphere. Tornadoes do occur in the southern hemisphere, it turns out. And let's start off with Australia. Looking at Australia, here's a map of all the documented EF3 plus tornadoes since 1970. And we only have one EF4, in the east near Bundaberg. It occurred on November 29, 1992. This is referred to as the 1992 Buka tornado. Overall, nine homes were destroyed, some of them being completely flattened to the ground. Thankfully, there were no fatalities, however, 20 cows were killed. It's always difficult to know what the true Fujita rating is of tornadoes that occurred outside the US, but some have estimated that the Buka tornado could have been an F5. Officially, though, it's an F4, and perhaps the strongest documented tornado in Australian history. During that same year, another EF3 tornado occurred in the northwestern section of Tasmania. So that's pretty awesome. South Africa also gets some pretty significant tornadoes. There's the 1999 Mannenberg tornado located within Cape Town. This tornado occurred on August 29th and resulted in five fatalities. 5,000 residents were also left homeless in the aftermath. Earlier in that same year, on January 18th, an EF4 impacted Mount Elif, South Africa, resulting in 25 fatalities. Most recently, on October 2nd, 2011, an EF4 struck near Johannesburg, resulting in several injuries and one fatality. 2011 was not a good year. And of course, across the Atlantic in South America, we actually have an F5 tornado that occurred in Argentina on January 10th, 1973. This is known as the San Justo F5, and this tornado completely leveled several blocks within the city with winds estimated at 250 mph. Very intense. There were 63 fatalities and over 350 injuries. Some eyewitnesses even claim that the tornado was red due to it destroying several red brick apartment buildings. That would definitely be pretty crazy to see. This tornado holds many records, including the strongest documented tornado not only in Argentina, but in the entire Southern Hemisphere. Truly out of place. Okay, so what about a tornadic, supercellular, mesocyclonic tornado in the middle of the ocean? I'm not talking like a waterspout, or like a fair weather waterspout, I'm talking about like a true supercell tornado in the middle of the Pacific. Can that happen? Has it happened? Well, the ocean doesn't really provide the proper elements for supercells to occur, but perhaps under some very unique circumstances, anything is possible. I've seen some towering cumulus clouds way off in the distance over the ocean before, so it's definitely possible. We do have some tornadic, mesocyclonic, supercellular tornadoes that are close to the coast over the ocean though. One example is the tornado that formed during the Sydney to Hobart yacht race on December Thankfully no one was killed, but check this thing out, it looks sick. Likely an F2, but still a force to be reckoned with. What about a water wedge? A wedged tornado is a tornado that's wider than it is tall. Not many people think of waterspouts being wedged tornadoes, but they do occur every once in a while. One example actually occurred off the coast in Carchuna, Spain in 2001. They've also been known to occur in the Gulf of Mexico like this one in October of 2019 Alright, I want to finish this video by briefly talking about some extreme locations, like truly extreme, like Antarctica? Has there been a tornado over Antarctica? No. In fact, Antarctica is the only continent that doesn't have a tornado on record. But how close can we get to the North and South Poles? On August 26, 1976, a very weak tornado made brief landfall approximately 29 miles north of the Arctic Circle in Hockley Hills near Kiana, Alaska. The tornado report from this location is the most northerly one ever made. It was just one of those super quick touchdown mountain tornadoes, you know, kind of like this one from Montana. So nothing crazy. In terms of the furthest south, Pierto Montt, Chile seems to get a lot of tornadoes. There are a few videos of them, but if you look at this map, these are all very recent, like within the past 10 years. I mean, might not be the furthest south ever documented, but definitely pretty far south. That's the end of the video. Thank you so much for watching. Shout out to Factor. Thank you, Factor, for supporting the channel. We'll see you in the next one.