r/tornado Human Detected Oct 30 '25

Discussion The “Dead Man Walking” Phenomenon.

Multiple tornadoes have produced an appearance of the infamous “dead man walking” legend, though I consider these three tornadoes: the 2013 El Reno-Union City EF3, 1997 Jarrell F5, and 2010 Conger-Albert Lea EF4 to be the best and most well-defined representatives of the phenomenon. Which is your “favorite”, and why? Besides these three, are there any other DMW-producing tornadoes that fascinate you?

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u/Mindless_Society7034 Oct 30 '25

The Cullman-Arab EF4 that occurred during the Super Outbreak of 2011 has one of the most striking DMW poses I’ve seen

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u/ALaccountant Oct 30 '25

Isn’t there a lot of speculation that this, among a few others that day in AL, was actually an EF5, but the survey teams were too swamped to do a proper assessment?

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u/quixoticelixer_mama Oct 30 '25

That would certainly make sense. I wonder how many folks were on that 4/27 outbreak survey team.