Limerick tornado 1851

juneg

http://limerickslife.com/limerick-tornado/

If we thought last night was bad.........

A T4 tornado ripped through Limerick in 1851:eek:

Comhrá

I think you might mean an F 4.

F stands for Fujita, who was a Japanese scientist who developed the scale of F1-F5, depending on how much damage a tornado caused.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fujita_scale

Used to be FI, F, F3 etc.

This Fujita scale was replaced in 2006 but the Enhanced Fujita scale...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enhanced_Fujita_scale

so now it's an EF1, an EF2 etc...

http://www.wunderground.com/resources/severe/fujita_scale.asp

fryup

an F4?? and how could they measure it back in the day in 1851

Comhrá

I believe they assess the amount of damage, then decide what rating the tornado merited. I'd say the Limerick one might be considered EF2 or so by today's standard. I saw a few towns in the Mid-West USA which were hit by EF4 tornadoes and the damage was pretty horrific and widespread.

The worst rating is EF5 and the Americans who know theses things refer to an EF5 tornado as "The finger of God" :eek:

Comhrá

Here are photos of various damage from EF1 to EF5. Scary stuff!

EF1:


EF2:


EF3:


EF4:


EF5:


We get offlightly in Ireland

pappyodaniel

Those photos remind me of the story of the 3 little piggies.

Marcus Halberstram

I saw a dust devil beside athlunkard bridge across the bank from the rowing club a few years back. We had really warm and humid weather at the time and as I was stopped in traffic I noticed everyone staring towards the river. There was a mini twister sucking up all the dust about 20-30 feet in the air for a good minute or so and then it vanished just as quickly. Was pretty cool.