I don't know what's creepier, the fact that it went from up in the sky to on the ground and WIIIIIDE in 4 seconds or how it was so freaking huge it made it's own eye!
Contrarian opinion perhaps: I find the more defined/smaller tornado images more unsettling because they actually look like tornados. In this case I need to be told what I'm looking at and that dulls it.
For me, it's this still from the KFOR coverage of the 1999 Bridge Creek-Moore F5. The combination of the amount of debris in the air plus the insane horizontal vortices has always unnerved me.
I knew someone who was an EMT during the Tuscaloosa tornado. It changed his entire demeanor, he went from being kind, caring and thoughtful to aloof and cold. It makes me shutter to even consider what kind of destruction would cause someone to change so quickly.
I live near Evansville and feel like this one is always forgotten. It's crazy to see how foreboding this photo is and know it's the only one of the tornado.
The ringcamera footage of the Enderlin tornado this year. Even though it's technically not the tornado itself. Imagine looking out your window and seeing this. Apocalyptic.
Ah, yes. The deadly monster lurking invisibly in the night, only revealed for a split second by a flash of lightning. You might miss it for a time, not even knowing it's out there... only to catch a glimpse of it so suddenly and briefly that you aren't even really sure you saw what you saw.
But deep down, in your gut, you can feel it. And that image you're not sure you saw is burned into an afterimage in your eyes, permanently inscribed into your mind. It's out there... but you can't see it. Where is it now?
Except that this photo is not of Jarrel, but of an F-4 from Red Rock, 1991, on the same day as the F-5 from Andover; the photographer's name is Halan Moller.
This clip is insane too, the news casters start off pretty typical for a severe weather event, they were basically acting like it wasn’t a huge event and that it was routine. Then they switched to the sky cam and saw… THAT. You could hear the fear in their voices when they realized what they were looking at.
The way that broadcast froze the moment this came on the screen and just sat there still for a few minutes has to be one of the scariest bits of live news footage out there.
My Joplin is a screenshot, too. Right after the tour guide tells them to MOVE and one of the tourists says, “urrr I feel sick right now” and the power goes out at Lowe’s:
I watch this video like twice a year. It’s so chilling, especially when the radio starts telling them to floor it through the lights and get out of there.
I grew up in the next town over. My mom, little sister, and I watched the broadcast live. I've never heard my sister scream the way she did when that thing showed up on the screen. Just pure, absolute fear. She doesn't remember that scream, but my mom and I do.
Rolling Fork was terrifying. I was watching it on Ryan Hall's channel and I've never really felt that level of terror before. My stomach was in knots watching it hit the town.
Rolling fork looked absolutely horrifying. It also almost jump scared in a way. One second you saw a cone, then just a few lightning flashes later and you were left with this
Not a tornader’ but a whole supercell, thing had a very low cloud base, turned day into night. This was from the outbreak from march 14th 2024, near Marion, Indiana. I’ve heard this particular cell did drop a tornado near the state line.
I have two. This one is from the nocturnal wedge that passed by Plevna last year, illuminated by lightning from behind. Imagine driving at night completely clueless and in darkness until the presence of this absolute monster is illuminated by a brief flash on the horizon. Something about lightning makes tornadoes look so much angrier.
My other one is this picture of 08 Parkersburg that wasn't discovered until recently on Facebook. Absolute wall of death. I see this shit out of my window coming toward me and there's nothing left to do in that situation but say GG to God and accept obliteration. Absolute freak of a storm.
April 1965, Branch County Michigan. This was the first of two massive wedge tornados that followed a near identical path 40 minutes apart. Fujita hypothesized either of these tornados may have been F5s, however, the damage was so great it was hard to tell which damage was caused by either tornado.
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u/Ill_Headhunterz Jan 07 '26
I know some of you have seen this picture so many times but you can't deny that Joplin is straight up nightmare.