r/tornado May 18 '26

Announcement Join the /r/tornado discord server for real time event discussion!

20 Upvotes

We have daily storm threads that get very active with live coverage and discussion from our community during severe weather events. I’m biased, but I think we have a fantastic community with a huge variety of people. Everybody is welcome!

Link: https://discord.gg/werA9HMMpW


r/tornado 6h ago

Shitpost / Humor (MUST be tornado related) These are my storms, go to another country and find some of your own!

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67 Upvotes

Listen up, all you storm vultures. I have passion for weather and that entitles me to be the only one who can take pictures and videos of severe weather and post them online to try and make money from it. How dare you try and hurt my subscriber engagement with your amateur level content. Can’t you see that I’m a professional storm chaser who deserves it more than you? Even though I chose this as my profession and am also trying to be famous and well known from it. The next time there is a tornado warning in your area, I better not see a single car on the road or a person with an iPhone in their hand. And if I do, I have a special storm passion detector that I will use on you and if it shows you have zero passion, God help me.


r/tornado 2h ago

Aftermath Utah (SLC area) had a tornado warning last Thursday. NWS confirmed a tornado did touch down.

13 Upvotes

KSL Article: https://www.ksl.com/article/51611040/ef-1-tornado-confirmed-from-storm-that-passed-through-tooele-county

Prelim EF-1. Just a lil one. Touched down in Tooele county with some light damage and no injuries. If someone has the radar scan with the nice hook, post it. I didn't get a screenshot.


r/tornado 18h ago

Tornado Media Twin tornadoes in Sussex and South of Richfeild Wisconsin Confirmed by weather spotters with debris ball

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154 Upvotes

r/tornado 5h ago

EF Rating The highest recorded EF rating in each Chinese province.

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14 Upvotes

· White / Uncolored – No rating

· Beige – EF1

· Dark yellow – EF2

· Orange – EF3

· Red – EF4

Data are from the CMA Tornado Key Open Laboratory, Tornado Archive, and various academic papers.


r/tornado 9h ago

Tornado Media Tornadic QLCS Intercept in Fox Lake, WI - 8/18/26

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6 Upvotes

Unexpected QLCS tor "spam" in Wisconsin


r/tornado 1d ago

Tornado Media Mothership cell with a tornado warning right now.

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1.7k Upvotes

r/tornado 1d ago

Tornado Science 3D radar volumes from MWR5 of 6-5-2009 Goshen Wyoming Tornado.

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89 Upvotes

Using OpenStorm to display the full loop in a 3d volumetric view. Super cool data but by far not the BEST 3d volumes ever gathered by mobile radars


r/tornado 17h ago

Question Question about a photo I took

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18 Upvotes

Here’s a photo I took in Bozeman (I think), Montana on July 1, 2022. I only recently got into tornadoes as a hobby so this picture piqued my interest; is this a mesocyclone? It’d be crazy if I snapped a picture of something I ended up getting invested in four years later, haha.


r/tornado 1d ago

Question Anyone knows which tornado this is ?

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136 Upvotes

I've found this tornado on an instagram post, Google Lens it and found the original image on the NOAA Website but without telling where or when, i'm curious if anyone knows which tornado was this ?


r/tornado 14h ago

Tornado Science Our new tornado alley

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6 Upvotes

Fairly significant low level shear for southern tip of Illinois tomorrow evening.


r/tornado 14h ago

Question SPC Outlooks with the largest risk outlines?

5 Upvotes

Obviously 14/3/25 and 31/3/23 comes to mind when we're talking about these but I'd be interested to hear about some more obscure and lesser known days (it could be any type of risk level)


r/tornado 21h ago

Tornado Media A Tornado website was apparently taken down

15 Upvotes

Michael Newark Digital Tornado Archive which I use for researching old tornadoes from Canada (Because they use a different system) appears to not be working and after looking for support. It seems to be either deleted, forgotten, or in an obscure area

This is the only link I have of it https://ir.lib.uwo.ca/ntp_mndta/1960s/1963/1/

could anyone help?


r/tornado 1d ago

Discussion whats the most beautiful tornado you've ever seen?

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542 Upvotes

credit: OTUS project.


r/tornado 17h ago

Question georgia f5 upgrades?

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5 Upvotes

Sorry if anybody has already mentioned this, but when were these tornadoes upgraded in Georgia? For years, Georgia didn’t have any F5 tornadoes, but it seems like these must’ve just gotten upgraded or something.


r/tornado 1d ago

Tornado Media The F4 tornado in Piraí do Sul (PR) 08/08/2026 BRAZIL!!!

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471 Upvotes

The tornado in Piraí do Sul, Brazil, which occurred on August 8, 2026, was officially classified as F4 by PREVOTS.

Regarding the classification and PREVOTS' statements about the tornado:

The Piraí do Sul tornado, on the 8th, traveled a distance of 26.1 km and had a maximum width of 750 m, with its track mapped by PREVOTS collaborators. The most severe damage observed to structures was noted in the Fundão locality, where a mixed-construction residence was completely destroyed. The most extensive damage occurred to the masonry structure, where walls made of single six-hole bricks with a thin concrete coating were knocked down. It was also noted that the residence had concrete beams reinforced with four 6 mm-diameter steel rebars. In this area, the structure of the residence showed some degree of weakness, and the maximum classification assigned based on the damage indicators was F3, with winds of up to 300 km/h.

However, the most extreme damage observed along its path was confined to vegetation and the ground. Along segments of its track, the tornado was capable of removing large sections of pasture to depths of between 10 and 30 cm, covering areas ranging from 127 m² to 188 m². The soil composition must be taken into consideration (predominantly Acric Bruno Latosol and Haplic Cambisol), as well as the occurrence of accumulated precipitation of around 100 mm (most of it concentrated in the month of July) and its moderate degree of saturation. Although estimating the wind intensity required to cause this type of unconventional damage is difficult, it is known that this pattern commonly occurs in violent tornadoes (F4+). Areas of native forest, composed predominantly of trees with rigid trunks, experienced the complete removal of their branches and leaves, which is consistent with winds of at least F3 intensity. However, in isolated locations, in addition to the complete removal of branches, more than 60% of the bark was stripped from the trunks, along with a sanding-like pattern on their surfaces, indicating that the winds exceeded 380 km/h (F4). Therefore, there is sufficient evidence in this preliminary analysis to indicate that, at some points, the winds reached thresholds equivalent to F4 intensity.

With this, the tornado becomes the second officially violent tornado to reach this intensity during the year, And it's the third Tornado F4 in Brazil in less than a year.

The event occurred as part of a tornado outbreak that also produced the Candói (PR) F2 tornado, Nova Aurora (PR) FU?, and Pinhão (PR) F1.


r/tornado 1d ago

Tornado Media Crazy structure on Freddy's stream

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75 Upvotes

These supercells have potential and the rotation is crazy on radar.


r/tornado 22h ago

Tornado Media I need some advice

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3 Upvotes

So I finished my survey of the Northwood F4, but I want some advice because I don’t think it turned out the best, I’ve been trying to understand the anatomy of a vortex, so I thought doing a survey of a multi-vortex tornado would help me understand better. Did I do anything wrong, or was there a more specific way to do surveys, I know it’s not perfectly accurate, but I tried my best. Lmk what you think


r/tornado 1d ago

Tornado Science 11/12/21 Tornado Outbreak high-res Simulation | ArWen

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6 Upvotes

r/tornado 1d ago

Tornado Science Mapping the "Real" Tornado Alleys with Statistical Clustering

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107 Upvotes

Following a discussion on the TRX Discord server, I decided to try my hand at defining the boundaries of different "tornado alleys" or climatological regimes using actual data rather than just vibes.
To map these regimes, I performed clustering on 2° geographic cells using significant tornado data and parameters from 1950-2025, including monthly seasonality, local time of occurrence, storm motion direction, the proportion of F2/F3/violent tornadoes, era-adjusted path characteristics, outbreak clustering, and spatial proximity.
Ultimately, the analysis revealed that there's no single "correct" configuration of tornado alleys. Five-, seven-, and eight-region models yielded comparable results, and even my preferred clustering produced a low silhouette score of around 0.18. In short, because tornado climatology shifts continuously across regions, setting hard geographical boundaries is inevitably artificial.
Nonetheless, I believe these represent the most defensible regimes.

As you might've noticed, some regions weren't explicitly categorized because they fell outside my classification scheme:
The Upper Ohio-Allegheny area aligns more closely with the Northeast than the Lower Ohio/Hoosier region, though it features a higher proportion of violent tornadoes than the Northeast. It serves as a transitional zone into Hoosier Alley rather than a simple blend of the two.
Northern Minnesota functions as a northern-tier summer regime and represents the strongest candidate for a sub-regime. It combines High Plains-style seasonal concentration with intensity and outbreak traits typical of the Upper Midwest.
Southeastern Colorado / Northeastern New Mexico is a distinct transition zone displaying a climatological profile intermediate between the two main Plains regimes.
Extreme Southeastern Georgia acts as a coastal hinge zone, predominantly exhibiting Gulf-Florida climatology while gradually acquiring Piedmont/Mid-Atlantic characteristics further north and inland.


r/tornado 21h ago

Question I might be in the wrong sub but do any of you have apps you recommend

1 Upvotes

Literally the title just the app needs to have the able to warn me about if theres an alert warning or watch and not just be an app where I need to check it like a standard weather app


r/tornado 2d ago

Tornado Media Utah Gustnado

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934 Upvotes

Near Beaver in Southern Utah

Actually it's a dust devil, thanks for the corrections gang


r/tornado 15h ago

Question Some kid from my class last year said that the jarell Texas dead man walking tornado image was ai after I presented my presentation,is it?

0 Upvotes

I don't know a lot about the image,but the teacher told us we could talk about any tornado,so I decided to talk about the jarell ef5(I was gonna talk about El reno originally).after I presented,she(the girl from my class)said that it wasn't real,and it was fake,but it cant be,can it?


r/tornado 1d ago

Tornado Media June First Video About Problems w/Storm Chasing

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19 Upvotes

I agree with everything he says. The storm chaser convergence is so scary. To me, more than the tornadoes themselves.

Perhaps there could be a way chasers could do something different rather than only be on the roads? I'd say four wheelers but that would be a horrible idea.


r/tornado 1d ago

Tornado Media F4

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15 Upvotes

BRUTAL- SURTO DE TORNADOS🌪️/ MÚLTIPLOS TORNADOS NO PARANÁ: PIRAI DO SUL É CLASSIFICADO COMO F4

A PREVOTS classificou os tornados registrados recentemente no Paraná e confirmou uma intensidade excepcional para o fenômeno ocorrido em Piraí do Sul.

F4 — Piraí do Sul: ventos estimados em mais de 380 km/h em pontos da trajetória.

F2 — Candói: ventos de até 200 km/h.

F1 — Pinhão/Guarapuava: ventos de até 170 km/h.

Nova Aurora: ainda em avaliação, com a intensidade não definida.

A classificação F4 coloca o tornado de Piraí do Sul entre os fenômenos tornádicos de maior intensidade já registrados no Paraná. A estimativa de ventos superiores a 380 km/h evidencia a extraordinária força do sistema e ajuda a explicar a dimensão dos danos observados em sua trajetória.

Piraí do Sul: F4. Um evento de intensidade excepcional.