December Throwback: Wild Tornado Video

The incredibly narrow main circulation of a tornado on
 December 15, 2021 in Columbus, Nebraska. Hard to see
but the main circulation is roughly from the hood of the 
car across the street to the end of the driveway on the left
The tornado's forward speed was also a remarkable 
80 mph, nearly three times that of a typical twister.

 Just because it's fun to look at super interesting weather events after we've had a chance to catch our breaths, its time to really look at some weird stuff from a couple months ago. 

Back in December, there was a really weird severe weather outbreak in the middle of the nation.  

Record warmth, strong damaging non-thunderstorm winds and an incredibly powerful cold front combined forces on the 15th of that month. 

As the Weather Channel notes, an incredible 99 tornadoes spun up in an unprecedented derecho that extended from Kansas to Wisconsin.  These tornadoes were weaker than some of the super-destructive ones that hit in and around Kentucky a week earlier.

But the fact there were so many, an so far north is off the charts. Two months later, I still can't get over how odd that December 15 outbreak was.  Up until that day, Minnesota had never seen a tornado in December. That day there were 20 of them. 

Iowa had 44 tornadoes, the most of any day in that state's history.  Remember, tornadoes are exceedingly rare in Iowa in December.  The vast majority of Iowa tornadoes happen in the spring or summer. 

The tornadoes sprung up along the line of storms that comprised the derecho. These type of spin up tornadoes tend to spin up quickly, never get super strong, then quickly fall apart. That's not to minimize these tornadoes. They are still very dangerous and can cause a lot of damage. Most of the tornadoes that spin up along squall lines and derechos are EF-0, EF-1, or EF-2, which have wind speeds of 65 to 157 mph. 

The reason I'm bringing all this up is I recently stumbled upon a video taken in Columbus Nebraska by Maritza Moya Garcia.

The spin up tornadoes along squall lines like this are usually quite narrow, and this video demonstrates how tiny but powerful they can be.  As the video opens, the neighborhood is already getting well into the circulation of the tornado.   A screen door flies off the house across the street, and the large tree across the street begins to sway dramatically.

Then, 15 seconds into the tornado's real core arrives. It's amazingly small, roughly the width of a driveway.  It smacks into the house and moves on. You might have to rewind the video to see it clearly as it's incredibly sudden. 

Luckily, it appears the house is not seriously damaged, but you can see how that core abruptly tears limbs from the tree in the front yard.

Another aspect of this is how fast the forward speed of the tornado was.  It was zipping through the neighborhood at 80 mph, which is incredibly fast for a tornado.  The forward speed of most of the tornadoes in this outbreak were about that fast.  This is also incredible, as the average forward speed of a tornado is roughly 30 mph.

The tornado in the video looks like it caused EF-0 or possibly EF-1 level damage in the videographer's neighborhood, which would indicate wind speeds of up to 112 mph. The tornado ended up doing damage rated at EF-2 in Columbus, Nebraska, probably after it passed the videographer's location. An EF-2 tornado has winds of 113 to 157 mph. 

If you're on a mobile phone especially, you might not see the video, below. So instead, click on this hyperlink.

Otherwise, click on the image below. For best viewing, click on the right arrow, then on the YouTube logo.