Is This a Vehicle Flying Around a Tornado? - Rolling Fork, MS
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- Опубліковано 28 чер 2024
- On Friday March 24, 2023, a massive EF4 Tornado devastated Rolling Fork, MS. We captured a mysterious light that circles all the way around the vortex, could this have been the headlamps of a vehicle? A group of storm chasers, mechanical engineers, and meteorologists come together to figure out what happened.
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There was not just one light, there were two. They are visible on each side of the funnel at the same time, and are very easy to see in slow motion.
It is true in another video that I saw of another storm chaser you can see when a light is in the air and another is absorbed from the ground.
Glad to see others seem to have noticed this as well.
Also as the car is at its highest and on the right side of the tornado, you can see another light in the air for a few secs.
That could also be lens flare. Not able to tell from this alone. It truly would be horrific if it were a pair of car headlights, so I’m hoping it was just flare.
@@tygrubb you can see how the headlights are partially illuminating debris in the tornado. Lens flare can't do that.
Yeah, in all the discussion/debate around whether it was lens flare, a drone, if tornadoes can even pick up cars without being a high end EF-5, etc. I never saw anyone mention that there seems to be multiple cars on opposing sides of the tornado. I just thought no one else talked about it because I was crazy & seeing things or not understanding something properly. Just makes it even harder to grasp seeing that others noticed it as well.
The sheer power of ef4 and ef5 tornadoes is just unthinkable
Ill stick with earthquakes
@@samholdsworth420 I'll stick to our wildfires we get every year in California over tornadoes and earthquakes lmao
Earthquake are as powerful as tornadoes
fear the power of the Lord...
there ain't no atheist in a tornado...
@@unarammer2003 then what in the tornado?
My mom almost got picked up by one in 1960.
She ran outside to save our dog that was being blown & rolling across the yard toward the road.
She sprinted to pick him up in her right arm and had to lean into the wind crawling while running & using her other arm to keep from loosing her balance.
It was about 50 yards to our dog & it took her about 2 minutes of fighting the winds to get back to the house & we then ran into the basement.
I was only 7 then.
She will always be my hero.
She sounds like a good woman. ❤ I definitely would risk my life for my dog, as well.
And thank you for sharing!
This just shows how much people love their pets!
Natural selection failed the world this time.
Your mom is amazing. 🥰
The final product turned out great, Max! Happy to have collaborated on this project!
- Ethan
I just subbed to your channel. Can't wait to dive into your previous vids.
On my way to do the same!!
Totally subscribed. You need more viewers your channel is awesome
Agreed. June First is a fantastic channel with really unique and valuable content. Ethan's latest videos have been first class.
I highly recommend his recent damage analysis videos, Doppler radar explainer, and hailstone video.
I’ve been subbed for a couple years (live in upstate ny where you sometimes chase). Happy to see you pop up here and get some recognition!
The Moore 2013 tornado also lofted cars high up into its vortex as a wedge
Moore also record highest wind speeds ever documented
@@chriscee546 The 03 May 1999 F-5 in Moore had the highest recorded wind speeds of 301 +/- 20 mph, but they’re referencing the 20 May 2013 EF-5 Moore tornado that had winds of about 210 mph. Still crazy powerful, but not the same storm as the one that set the record.
@@b.a.jordan1857 Yes but still much stronger than the one last week in MS
@@chriscee546 Okay? What was your point?
@@mrpeach2023 1.Cope
2.Seethe
We were on the stairs running down to our safe room when that beast hit Rolling Fork. Thank you for all that you have done to help us and to bring attention to our lives. Keep up the amazing work.
UPDATE - We are still continuing to investigate the lights in the video, there are some other potential theories that we've been diving into and hopefully we can come up with enough to make a part two. Thank you for all of the kind words about the production, as well as the additional theories and insights!
Go look for a flattened car where you think it landed.
@@chateaumojo I’m sure there’s dozens of flattened cars in that area
The intensity of the light fails to dip really, showing that it is either a car whose orientation stays locked with the camera, or it is a light source projecting out 360 degrees on at least one axis.
An automobile will not keep orientation with the camera that much.
You all are plenty smart, surely you all know this...
Scientifically, is it likely the headlights would have stayed facing the direction of the camera? I would guess no, but don't understand the physics well enough to know. It might be a motorcycle or possibly an accessory light that became detached. My top guess is a security light that runs on battery so it will stay lit during a power outage.
@@wildflower1397 the car certainly did not face the camera the whole time. its not physically possible. that thing was emanating light from every side, and its also not circling the tornado at a steady rate. The light speeds up and slows down. it could be a lantern, it could be something different. maybe its a spooky ghost we will never know
Was someone killed or injured and found inside of a car? With the headlights on is would appear that someone would have been driving the car at the time it was picked up by the tornado. It may also be possible to track the car by GPS either by the cars own sensor or other equipment in the car. If that is found it could give you lots of data to better help understand how this happened.
This is exactly my question
If that's a car, then there's a car in the debris field with 1) key in the ignition 2) airbags deployed 3) human remains inside. The coroner should be able to prove this....not to internet randos, but the NWS Jackson should have enough clout to ask them about it.
But who’s to say that the driver would be dead they may had been lifted that high without even knowing then placed down soft enough to not cause death but minor or no injuries at all this could be possible without the driver even knowing
From what I have been told, there were indeed fatalites from people who were driving when the tornado struck...
@@random_silicates it is also possible that someone stopped and left the vehicle running and ran to shelter...
Nice one for shouting out Ethan over at June First. He's a great guy and helped me with my recent RFD video. His mechanical engineering angle to severe weather UA-cam content creation is super valuable and unique. Well worth subbing and watching. Have a safe and amazing continued storm season Max 👍
Ahh nader oh just a commenter continue on friends
Excellent presentation. We are 50 miles NE of Rolling Fork. That really was a dark and stormy night. Blessing to our fellow Mississippians as the recover from that catastrophic night.
So you were basically right in the potential path of this thing! Granted, 50 miles is a bit of distance, but still, you must have been shiiting bricks at the time!
As an Aussie who’s been obsessed with tornados and cyclones (hurricanes for you guys) since I was a kid, I’ve never really considered the speed at which they actually travel at…50-55mph (80km/hr for me) is absolutely terrifying to think about.
Some tornados will travel much faster than that. Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe the fastest tornado (that I know of at least) traveled at 116mph.
Yeah 300 plus mph
The Moore tornado got up to around 335km. We’re pretty lucky we only need to deal with the odd bushfire and flood.
I mean "walking" speed (forward motion on the ground) not wind speeds.
Jarrell was around 15 mph, one of the April 2011 F5 got up to 60 mph. Anything faster is because it's being sling shot by another tornado.17:34, the subvortex is being slung around the parent at 175mph.
ua-cam.com/video/gnIU2Ii2Ec8/v-deo.html
I'm a first year mechanical engineer, and I have been studying weather for 10 years on my own now. I find this absolutely fascinating. Thank you.
are you a college student?
@@user-el8zv9hx6r yes
@@andrewhuntzinger2293 careful referring to self as "engineer" until you are licensed
@@user-el8zv9hx6r man go away. Anyone can technically claim themselves as an engineer. I forgot to add “student” but only people like you would try to correct something so insanely small. I physically engineer, design, and build things every day. I’m not boasting but I find it ridiculous that you feel the need to tell me to be careful, even if you are being genuinely kind.
Junior mechanical engineering major here! Best of luck to you my man.
Thank you sharing your ad revenue with the residents of Rolling Fork.
If it was a car and someone was inside I can’t imagine how terrified that person was.
Omg, for real. I hope they were able to get out of it in time. So terrifying, but also so fascinating.
There’s a video of a chaser being struck by the tornado and after the incident he looks around and sees a car on its roof with its roof caved in hard…
There is a video included in the Joplin Missouri 2011 compilation that shows a man who was sucked in while in his car. The terror in his voice is awful. That entire compilation is hard to watch.
I’ve Hurd it was a van that had a full family in it and said that they all have died
@@caristewart481 really no way, send link if it true?
I just don't believe that
It seemed, rather controlled, stable, and uniform in its appearance. In the unpredictable chaos of a tornado, I’d expect it to be rolling end over end, displaying both headlights and red taillights as it was turned in the chaotic winds.
Thats what struck me, the stability and how the light never loses its shape and brightness while being hit with all that wind and rain, may not be a car.
My thought as well. I'm not sure what exactly it could be, but it seems like it must be a more omnidirectional light source. But obviously something that wasn't just powered by being wired to the grid.
It was rolling over and around. If you have an iPhone you can blow the video up as it’s playing and keep the car in the center of the video. It’s clearly rolling up, down, twisting diagonally and you will realize this when you watch it. One headlight will disappear then the other will show up. In the normal video format it does look stable but in close up, it’s the furthest thing from stable.
@@scottfrost8956 Shouldnt there be times when the headlights are facing away, thus no white light, if its twisting around like that?
@@AdmiralJT Cameras in low light and/or long distances act weird, especially in todays world where there might or might not be AI fuckery going on as well. There are other chasers that captured this event and have a better view that does show flickering as the item rotates.
Thank you for making this video! So many other people filmed this thing flying around it from different perspectives
My great grandmother who died around 1969 in her upper 80's, told me about a real bad tornato. One thing she said was that straw was embeded deep into telephone poles, fence posts and trees. I've always wondered how fast the wind would need to be to do this. I'm guessing it would have to have been an EF5 with like 300mph winds. I read there was a real bad tornato some time around the turn of the century in the upper mid that sounded like it was an EF5. Wish I remembered the date of that one, I would have liked to see newspapers about it and some of the photos.
I personally saw That after Hurricane Fredric that made landfall on the Mississippi Alabama Line in 79 , I was about 15 yrs old at that time, that was a incredibly powerful hurricane , there wasn't many trees left standing , pine trees was like toothpicks across the roads , but I Did see pine straw literally impaled into tree's like darts ,
These tornatos are something else I tell ya.
@@Eldomibori no doubt, There's definitely a intensification of storms this spring, These Constant Low pressure waves come outta the Pacific Into California then The Jet Stream Spins em like a top as they cross the Midwest by the time they get to the Lower Mississippi Valley, Or Ohio River Valley They're Feeding On Gulf Moisture and Warm Air , the perfect combination for destruction , From everything I see It's not gonna let up anytime soon , April Is Looking Really Active For Severe Weather unfortunately ,,Not to mention The rain, The wind , Cold front after Cold front is really screwing up My fishing This Spring 🤷🏻♂️🤦🏻♂️🐡🐟 🎣
@@donniedickerson8077 YES your right! I was 14 years old during Fredrick and living in Leaksville, Mississippi. Pine needles where stuck in the side of our little Wood frame house and sticking straight out.😳
I grew up in tornado alley and began storm chasing at a very young age with my father who worked in Law Enforcement, and have been NOAA certified and reporting since youth. I've been through too many microbursts, supercells and tornadoes. I have personally seen hay struck through telephone poles and cattle impaled by trees. The 'shear gravity of forces' (bad tornado pun for levity) is absolutely spooky and astounding. That's what makes them such an awesome phenomenon (in the literal sense) to behold. Terrifying, mesmerizing, and horrific, all at once. The more we can learn in order to predict and give advanced warning is invaluable.
I'm set on it being a vehicle.
This is one of the best video productions I’ve seen on UA-cam. Better than much of the context from traditional TV news stations. Partly because everyone in the video has a background in the subjects discussed. Instead of having a “news person” asking dumb questions or posing dumb hypotheticals. I’ll be subscribed to this and the other channels mentioned. Keep up the good work!
I was working for a power company in 1978 and we responded to a tornado that had hit Lake Ferguson in Mississippi. One of the things I remember was finding a completely undamaged Porche 914 that had been picked up and set down a couple of hundred yards in the middle of the neighboring forest. I don't know what the owner did, but it would have taken a month with chainsaws to get that thing out.
Fascinating. Thanks to all researching this.
It was car😢😢 Rolling Fork is my home we are devastated..that tornado was A MONSTER AND I WILL NEVER FORGET THE EXPERIENCE... Prayers for my town 🙏😢💜🙏🙏🙏
🙏 for you and your town
We so sorry😢😢
For you town😢😢
Prayers coming your way, I know exactly how you feel we had Katrina then a tornado in New Orleans East devastated my neighborhood.
Very best for you and your family in Rolling Forks MS😢😂❤❤❤😊
For starters, if they know the distance from the vehicle from where they filmed, and the max distance from headlight to headlight, they can determine if it’s a vehicle, or something smaller. Everything else lines up time-wise, so that’s where I would start. If they have clear enough film, they could even determine vehicle type or model.
Wait, you’re doing it right now! Never mind. Excellent video!
Jim bishops footage of the 5-31-13 EL Reno tornado shows a vehicle moving left to right over 100 feet in the air across the tornado, as the tornado was moving towards I 40, somewhere around the 16:50 to 17:10 mark. It's a little hard to see at first, but once you see it, it's impossible to miss. There's a subvortex on the right side of the tornado a few moments before the car comes around the other side, pretty wild footage
Can you link the video? He has more than one of El Reno.
Is it the little blinking light that flashes for a couple of seconds in the sky? It looks similar to the light from this tornado, only smaller
Yes, can you link it? I can’t seem to find which one it is!
I can’t find it either. A link would be appreciated.
It was literally the only one long enough to include his timestamps if you search the name and el Reno guys.
Anyway, it's very hard to see, it's a small blinking white light in the same timestamps he mentioned.
If you hear him say 'wooow' back up like 10 seconds an look again.
ua-cam.com/video/gnIU2Ii2Ec8/v-deo.html
Seeing the truck and trailer on top of what used to be a house was sad, and proof how strong that tornado was.
Even sadder is that the truck/trailer killed a husband and wife 😢
@@kingMT514 True, it did and a neighbor who owned the truck and trailer was lucky to survive. He's very thankful to be alive. He's said in an interview after looking at the destruction on his house that he shouldn't be alive. It was difficult to even know where the front door would've been, it's so mangled.
The red tail lights covers would be busted to reveal white light underneath. In the event the car was tumbling it would appear constant light.
Great video!
this is an absolutely fantastic analysis of this event, my only thought could be maybe it was a lighter vehicle like an atv or golf cart, there are also stories of a jeep (i think) smacking off of a water tower in the smithville ef5.
With the amount of people that were out driving and unaware of the tornado, I'm sure it was a vehicle. Couple chasers were driving through town honking the horn and trying to warn people. They were all oblivious. That's what happens when people aren't weather aware.
Also, glad you talked about the Smithville water tower. Haven't heard many mention that.
I live south of Smithville, and the dent is still there, last I heard.
@@jasonking454 They actually tore down and replaced that water tower, but it was there up until they did so.
It was a Ford Explorer but you're right. It was the Smithville EF-5. The dent remained until they tore down and replaced the water tower.
Fascinating video. I think back to the Smithville, MS tornado that lofted the SUV high enough to smash into the water tower. To just perfectly circle the tornado is terrifying. Great video!
That's nuts. I was pretty skepital those lights were cars, but you guys just convinced me how plausible that notion is. Great annimation from Chris too!
All I can think of is Team Twistex and the El Reno tornado 😭 that must've been such an unbelievably terrifying way to go
I found a video of el Reno around the time of the samaras Impact. There’s a moment of a light(s) similar to this going around in the storm before being sent along the bottom and diasappearing
I think the wild card that isn’t necessarily easy to simulate are the sub vortices that are associated with violent tornadoes. We saw how that small EF1 tornado tried to pluck that car up by 10 feet in the parking lot early in the video. It may be reasonable to expect a strong sub-vortex to pluck a vehicle up above the more horizontal winds rushing toward the vortex at ground level and into more uplifting winds of the parent tornado that occur above the surface inflow layer. A small ‘boost’ 10-20 feet into the air will probably greatly increase the chances of a vehicle lofting around a violent tornado.
Parked a Suburban with a trailer attached at Joplin's supercenter and took cover from the F5 in 2011.The Suburban was thrown from in front of the store way out in the lot over the store and ended up about 50 yards behind Walmart. The damage was un real. The axles actually snapped off as it must have been dropped from a major height. The frame was bent and the front bumper was touching the engine.
Where did you take cover?
This is SO damn cool Max. Thank you and everyone else involved for your hard work in the field and post-production things like this. Also great to see Ethan making his rounds in a bunch of videos. His channel deserves to blow up
Agree on all points.
Not cool thos are people there be humble sir
@@haha-mq8lwI’m not taking anything away from the tragedy that happened there. I’m just telling Max I appreciate his efforts.
The quality, expertise, and attention to detail that went into this, free to watch on the internet with all proceeds going to storm victims...and oh yeah, all within a week. Mind boggling.
The EF2 that hit my neighborhood in March of last year was the same one that everyone has seen of the red Chevy being spun like a top. It rolled over a bunch of trucks in the parking lot of the rec center up the street. Thanks to NWS & Texas Storm Chasers, I was two stories underground before it landed in my neighborhood. It missed us by two blocks, but the debris field broke out lots of windows.
Great video!! I have a question/comment. If those where headlights on a vehicle, that means said vehicle would have had to been facing the camera the entire time it orbited the tornado. It's hard to believe, but wouldn't you think the car would be tumbling and spinning through the air, making those lights come in and out of sight as it's spinning around as opposed to a steady/smooth glow facing the camera throughout the course of it's flight?
There's another video from a different angle with a different camera ( ua-cam.com/video/qJ27vMTp_L8/v-deo.html ) that shows the lights 'flickering' like you say. Maybe the camera for this one just didn't pick up that flickering well.
@@gamprhabanero5351 Thanks! This is more of what I would be expecting.
unless the tail lights were busted out as one commenter on this thread mentioned. Then the white light would be visible on both ends, producing a more constant light.
Also some cars briefly leave the headlights on but not the others when the car is shut off.
Why nobody ever consider the battery powered portable LED lights? I have them and they are as powerful as car lights at the fraction of weight. They can also be solar powered so you can just leave them in the field attached by magnets to a steel structure of your choice and they will happily shine for few hours. Also some security systems have lights that are battery powered in case of a blackout and are also bright as a hell. They also have movement sensors so they would certainly be turned on by it. They are usually under the roof and could be easier picked up by the wind. If it was a car, you may also see the red rear lights too. Even street lightning in Chinese countryside has a small solar panel attached to each street lamp to charge it. Could a solar panel give it a lift? I mean there are so many alternative explanations that give more plausible scenarios...
I was watching one chaser. And he commented that he thought it was a drone. But I saw it and immediately said in my head oh no headlights. Crazy stuff.
Some of the most haunting footage of our time.
I remember people saying they were flying drones while I was watching these feeds live.
The only way to be sure is if they found any bodies inside a mangled vehicle in or around that area. But that's only if the occupant wasn't ejected prior to or upon impact. What a horrifying situation all-around.
Or if there was any occupant at all. Someone could likely have run for a ditch and left it running.
My first thought was a road crew flood light station, the kind that sits on a small trailer with a generator. There are usually 4 flood lights or more, extremely bright, and they can be positioned in different directions. The lights are so bright it just looks like one big light. This could explain why the light can be seen so steadily even though it may be spinning. Just a thought. (I reallly don't want those lights to be vehicles with humans in them 😔)
That makes sense. I'm still coming back to get updated.
Light plant is the word your looking for but it would die if tank is unstable , they suck fuel from the bottom of the tank and are fragile lights. If the jolt the filament will short in the halogen bulbs. Good guess I think it can’t be ruled out yet
Since a F4 tornado in 1989 caringly stacked a bunch of semi trailer trucks up like building blocks at Wal-Mart Distribution Center, I have no doubt that these are vehicles being carried around by the tornado. We know these things happen, so why it is a debate is beyond me. It is right there in the footage. Sometimes you just need to believe what you are seeing.
One thing I’ve noticed over the years is that it’s harder to see debris, in videos at least, in wider tornadoes, except for May 3rd of course. Also, in I think Scott Peakes footage of the Wynnewood tornado there’s a shot of an alleged F150 getting whipped horizontally
There's an aspect of tornadoes you guys aren't picking up on.
It's not just high velocity winds, a Tornado has Suction, like a giant vacuum. That's why years ago before Doplar radar, weather men picked up on tornadoes by the hole that opens in the clouds behind where the funnel forms.
Which ports the funnel and voila you have suction.
I actually stood dead center beneath one of these holes in Catoosa Okla, it was wild looking, and not what you'd expect. There were so many layers to the clouds it went waaaaaay up then curved towards the funnel cloud that had just passed my house moments before.
There are also powerful sub-vortices that make the direction of the winds very complex, especially in larger tornadoes. So you can have small areas of powerful vertical winds even in a mostly horizontal wind field. And of course the tornado is powered by the massive diagonal updraft that is sucking all this air in to replace it and carrying lighter debris for hundreds of miles.
The geomagnetic fields through which these storms travel can create powerful emissions as a storm is building, which include intense electrical disturbances and gyroscopic currents that manifest into these tornadic, anti-gravity events.
(Think about a roof ripped off a kitchen, but a single, empty paper cup is still standing perfectly on the kitchen countertop, where it was left by the owner of the home, who is later found in the next door neighbors backyard!
These emissions are created inside the various layers of a tornado funnel and its larger mother, the super cell. Lightning is not an uncommon occurrence, and ball lightening is certainly not something to rule out here. However, this looks to be a vehicle or two, which is very gruesome and sad.
Its amazing that the very same force responsible for creating all the friction, which produces the lightning, was also most likely what provided the insane amount of energy needed to launch these vehicles skyward and keep them aloft for so long....very scary indeed!
I want a little tornado to vacuum my carpet now
Max there was a (several)car lifted in to a tornado back in 2011 from the EF5 tornado that hit Joplin MO! In one video looking to the SW you can clearly see a car, lights on, rotating in that tornado! Where it landed???
What video i wonder
Which video?
link?
The tornado went very close to Elmwood cemetery on Ending Bar road. Houses and buildings were destroyed about 1000 feet away. Many cemeteries around have solar powered lights on graves that could easily be picked up. Houses hit in the area could also have had the solar lights or battery powered emergency lights.
They wouldn't be that bright
The lights wouldn't have been next to each other the whole time that they orbited the vortex.
@@lfrankowtrue 👍
Yea this video is click bait
@@pinecedar180 How is it click bait? We saw exactly what the thumbnail described. Two lights in the tornado that looked almost exactly like the headlights of a car.
surprised there weren't any tailights visible and that the orientation of the headlights seemed to be unchanged. The intensity of the light didn't seem to change as I would expect. Those are the issues that make me question it's a vehicle, but I also don't have a better alternative thought to what it could have been.
I had the same thought. It seems like if it’s a vehicle, it was rotating in such a way that the front always faces the camera. Not impossible but it seems unlikely.
That beast of wedge looked like it had sub-vorticies and also horizonal ones in the video grabs; if that is the case, those things can grab a vehicle and violently lift and toss them around like toys. I'm not an engineer but I did minor in physics, so when I see those videos, it seems plausible to me those could be vehicles. I would rather think they're drones, because it is sickening to think otherwise :(
Incredible discussion, and very much fact-centric; thanks for posting this!
I find it hard to believe you even attended school as it should be common sense why it's impossible for these lights to be vehicles.
Outstanding work
The Moore EF5 Wedge of 2013 tossed cars like tonka toys.
There's tons of videos on YT showing it.
Exactly. Not sure how people aren't remembering it.
There is a BIG difference between a car being snatched and tossed by the focused winds of a tornado on the ground and floating/orbiting around high up well outside of the vortex. You have never seen it happen before because it's impossible. I don't even know why I have to explain this it should be common sense.
Awesome analysis from yourself and those that collaborated with you, man. Loved it.
This is a better up-close view. Pretty clear it’s a car
ua-cam.com/users/shorts0wRLwmybb6g?feature=share
Excellent video, first rate in all aspects - thanks for sharing!
To answer the question it was a car that was picked up from the 1st block that was hit by the twister.....took the car to the middle of town which was insane.....great video....Thanks for all the help you guys gave us
Max, Great Job on this. The question I have to maybe assist in this, since we can conclude that this had to be a vehicle. The vehicle had its lights on which means that either the vehicle was running when it was lofted or at minimum had the key in the ignition with the auto lights on. Were any of those killed by this devastating tornado found in a vehicle? If so then we can possibly look at where Chris says this car may have landed and pinpoint if the individual and vehicle could have been this car that was lofted.
Yes, but I don't think anyone wants to know that *this* is how their loved ones perished. 😢
@@PollyHistor I don't disagree with that statement. If someone perished in this way it must have been horrifying for them and I cannot imagine what they went through. I just hoped they prayed and God made it as painless as possible for them. I have and will be praying for the families who have lost loved ones and for the area in general.
Really well done. I've been a fan of Ethan @junefirst since he was chasing severe thunderstorms around New England. Knew it was a matter of time before the storm chasing community at large discovered what a uniquely good and really smart kid he is. And Chris's graphic summarizing the project was killer. Excellent collab and great work.
What an amazing collaboration and cheers to the give back off this video. ❤
Either that or a drone, but it’s been the hottest debate I’ve seen in the chasing community in a bit.
Given the distance of Max from the tornado and the apparent brightness of the lights this was a vehicle not a drone
That would have to be a GIGANTIC drone to even be seen from that distance. That doesn’t make much sense.
@@johnd9357 exactly. it sadly was a car, end of discussion
@@kingMT514 A drone would fall out of the sky without it's own power at that distance from a tornado circulation, end of discussion.
I appreciate the time and effort put into the video. There are handheld flashlights that are much brighter than headlamps of vehicles. The IMALENT MS18 is the extreme version of this with 100000 lumens. That puts it in the range of stadium lights, but in the much smaller package of a handheld flashlight. For reference, high intensity LED car headlights are 10000 lumens. It absolutely could have been anything with a bright light attached. There was no evidence presented that suggests this is more likely to be a vehicle for the light source rather than anything else.
How stable the light is indicates that it had lots of mass and wasnt tumbling like a small light would.
What would be the probability of TWO high-lumens flashlights being swept up in the same tornado. Not likely, especially when compared to the number of vehicles affected. I understand it's easier on the soul to want to imagine them as anything other than the Occam's Razor answer.
Not sure if you are not just advertising a product but assuming you are not would not a flashlight (or drone), being much lighter than an auto but rotating in such violent wind be rotating giving more of a flashing light similar to a lighthouse?
That's my initial thought.
This was super interesting. Thanks for all the info you put into this.
Exceptional video, Max.
Great work and theory’s abroad, may those rest easy.
What if a vehicle is traveling at say, 60mph? Does that make it more susceptible to being picked up than a parked vehicle?
Excellent question !
Yes. This is why escaping a tornado in a vehicle is so dangerous. It is very easy for lift to be generated on a moving vehicle, and likely the vehicle would be moving closer to 100mph, which just adds to the lift being generated as wind in the opposite direction increases and the tornado closes in.
It significantly changes the starting aerodynamics, but depending on the direction, it should be a little easier to lift thanks to the slight aerodynamic loft produced by a car in motion, and the direction it's drag vector is in.
If it's driving at 55 mph or lower than the tornado will run it over
Ahh Grasshopper, you have just caused many analysts heads to simultaneously explode...🤯....thus as your grandfather I shall hold with my position that "You don't tug on Supermans cape, you don't spit into the wind, you don't pull the mask of that old Lone Ranger and you don't mess around with Jim"...beyond those points grasshopper is utter speculation. Always remember grasshopper, traveling east, darkness always comes faster than when traveling west. Now go, the black belt you seek draws closer, however be warned, in the end Belts do nothing more than to assist pants to stay up. The true answer is found when thy realization becomes....
React without analysis, you're human nature will always be to protect thyself...👳♂️...
I was so happy to see this. I had watched the footage of you guys filming this right after you posted and I noticed the lights. It drove me crazy not knowing. I thought maybe a car but I know nothing about tornados except to just hide. Thanks for this video
Excellent video, great collaborative effort. All of that less than a week after this horrible event. Not a word on the fact that there were two lights hovering around the tornado?
Thanks! This is fascinating and also very scary.
Tossing vehicles are one thing. But to crush a vehicle like an empty soda can and then toss it is incredible strength.
The Jarrell and Smithville tornados were beyond belief.
Max! Excellent video! Thanks
Amazing video Max, fascinating stuff!
Hi, thanks for sharing this. I'm not sure if this is relevant for your video or not, but Justin Cox and Chase Coldiron have a video called "The First 10 Minutes of the Moore EF5 Tornado (5/20/2013)" where they caught a vehicle or two flying high up in the air around the tornado. This was right as it crossed a major highway. Time code of the video is 6:47
This is very well done.
Superb video Max!
Thanks all your hard work you put into this video
You did not take into consideration a vehicle moveing at speeds trying to escape a tornado. Whether the drove into it head on , side swiped or away from. But l think a moveing vehicle has a better chance of being lifted and tossed.
The smithville ef5 carried an suv from one side of town to the other sooo….
The truck it picked up off the highway traveled 3000 yards before slamming into the ground killing the driver.
@@elliotharrell1319 yep. I remember that. Terrible
Was this an ef5 that’s believed to be one of the strongest tornadoes in history? Not at all. They’re completely different tornadoes with different characteristics. Not at all comparable.
Such an awesome video. I love the science and experimental aspect!!! Has to subscribe
This makes me wonder if high profile vehicles like pickups and SUVs, which have a higher ground clearance, a higher center of gravity and more space underneath for wind to tunnel under might actually be more likely to get lofted than a low profile vehicle like a sedan even if the latter would in most cases weigh less. 🤔
I think No pick ups will just scoot, flip, or tumble. There was twister in our nearby town few years ago and the trucks butts scooted and a box truck tumbled over. There was one truck pulling a small rv that flipped. The forklift was the one thing that didn’t move but they’re really heavy. They were all side facing the twister. Our truck got a nice wash that day.
Another interesting story,
That same month 85 mile an hour straight line winds hit out of nowhere when I was home alone in our rv. It was hitting the side of the rv and I didn’t feel safe anymore so I left for our barn. The rv was creaking and it felt like I was standing in it going down a bumpy road. Well, I was watching the rv through the window shake and sink to the right little by little. I seriously thought it was going to flip and the barn was shaking and one window cracked. Once all said and done (after I got done ugly crying) and went to assess the RV it sunk about 3-5 inches to the right and all our cargo doors blew open. It blew out a throttle body for the car which is about 5 pounds and it was at least 10 foot from the cargo. I believe the only reason it didn’t tip was because it sunk. They say the pull in the slides for less sheer and better center of gravity but I had no time. You can really tell the difference in weight once slides are in though. Ever since then I’m really anxious about wind! This rv has actually survived a tornado at the dealership while some of the other flipped over. It survived hurricane harvey too. I forgot to add that it’s a 42 foot 5th wheel so it catches lots of wind.
Appreciating the expertise that went into this vid. I can’t help but reflect on how there was very likely a person in that vehicle who must’ve suffered horribly before the eventual (probably) fatal landing . As fascinating as the video is, we’re witnessing their final moments.
Given the horizontal speed of the object, it appears to have quite a considerable mass. I.e., the greater the mass of an object the more force it takes to increase its speed (increasing it's momentum). Perhaps it's possible to estimate the mass of the flying object given a range of possible winds speed it had acting upon it and the horizontal speed estimated from the video?
By then knowing its mass, it can be more evidence toward it being a car or not.
Right!
Great use of sources, felt like a like a science paper and absolutely loved it.
It wouldn’t just be a constant light since headlights are very directional it would be flickering and tumbling.
Another video ( ua-cam.com/video/qJ27vMTp_L8/v-deo.html ) captures the 'flickering' much better.
Man, I love your thought process, but how in the hell can you assume anything about the lights? Put yourself into an F4 or F5 and see if the laws of relativity apply...
I’ve been thinking about this a bit, in addition to there being more than 1 light source, the thing about vehicle lights is the lighting is a directional beam which would mean the vehicle is pointing relatively at the camera when the white light is visible and should change intensity as the front of the vehicle points in other directions. I am becoming more inclined with this being some type of solar chaired battery powered security/poll lamp.
This is not to discount the excellent work researching the mechanics behind a vehicle being lofted in a similar way.
I was told by a friend, he found a bowling ball from Cullman AL behind his house in Dayton TN. This was during the April 27th tornados. That's like 150 miles or so.
A friend of a friend found an inground swimming pool 2 miles away still full of water!
Wow really,
@@stevenbell721 Lol no. I purposely made the story unbelievable because without any way to verify people shouldn't just accept it as the truth.
Yes I know, but thanks 😂
Very good video! Love hearing the science behind it.
Excellent work, Max, et al. I was hoping I would find a deep dive into what happened.
At 13:43 you can see a large horizontal vortex to the right of the main circulation. I think it is very plausable that once the main circulation picks up a vehicle it can then get sucked into a stronger horizontal votex that pulls the vehicle even higher in the air. It is almost like an air highway that the car gets trapped in. Also the vortex seems to also rotate around the main circulation which would make the car look like it is rotating with the tornado.
I can’t envision it happening this way at all. But I appreciate the creative thinking.
Wow! Unbelievable!
excellent analysis and presentation, Max. Very well done. Would really like to see more videos like this in the future.
Thanks for this video,, well done, I was thinking about this very subject, and this answers my thoughts better than anything else possibly could've.
You have earned a subscriber for two reasons: Number one the video was made very well! Number two.. Set Your Goals.. nuff said.
Could have been a golf cart or such type vehicle.
Just drove past Rolling Fork… absolutely devastating
So I raced for 23yrs. In several series. But in stock cars in the late 90s 2000s I went flying multiple times. When my car would get turned around. Vehicles will produce downforce going forward but if the wind gets on the 6 position. It will create lift. I say this because look at the orientation of the truck flying. It’s a counter clock wind profile and if we are seeing head lights that means the wind was blasting the vehicle at the 3-6 o’clock. So it’s very easy to understand why it’s flying like a skytruck
Now we just need to apply these principles to deliberately fly trucks like that. I want a skytruck, my workdays would be much shorter
Yeah it is
Yes it is. I was watching Reed when the tornado crossed the highway and then lights could be seen inside the tornado.
I was watching the tornado live with Reed, too, but I sure don't remember seeing any flying cars.
@@maulenaspencer4906 Live storms media also caught it on film, but originally thought it was a drone. ua-cam.com/video/ilLzs_mQXGk/v-deo.html right about 4:10 in the video
That has to be really scary. 😳
Reed is willing to throw fake baseballs of ice at his vehicles (El Reno) pretending they are hailstones for the camera or that his hood was ripped off and taken by the tornado when it was because it got snagged and ripped off by a cable while reversing didn't even try to claim vehicles were floating around orbiting the outside of this tornado. These lights are not vehicles and anybody who claims they are is lying. The physics are impossible.
Excellent video and fascinating subject! Seems like there should be some obvious factors setting apart the vehicle that was lifted and dropped and high velocity vs thouse that simply tumbled.
Amazing!!!! Thank you and you got a new subscriber.
The other thing to consider is, what else could it have possibly been other than a vehicle? The other main argument I've seen is that it was a drone, which I don't buy. The size and brightness of the light just doesn't make sense for a drone.
I have never seen a video like this..I have my thoughts on the increase in Violent. Weather, one of them is that some of these. Storms may be. Engineered or. Man made.. The theories are out there..I did some. Research on the. Town of. Rolling. Rock..and found that the. Square. Mileage of the town is. 1.41 Miles..The tornado. Wedge was almost the same. Width..What are the. Chances that a Tornado the sane size as a Town would go. Exactly over the entire. Town ??
It was another Chinese spy UFO
An additional difficulty I have with a drone is that most commercial drones AFAIK aren't heavy enough to resist getting tossed about violently, as opposed to the very-relatively slower and level orbit we're seeing here. Plus, we'd have to be talking about a drone got swept up in the vortex and was completely out of control - any theory that this was a controlled orbit I think can be discounted out of hand, again b/c the size and power of all likely drones isn't enough for control under the immense wind currents that near the wedge.
Despite the physics being impossible for it to be a vehicle it fascinates me that people could believe it is simply because they can't think of anything else it could be lol.
The scariest part about this is the fact that there's most likely somebody inside that vehicle. 😳 I couldn't even begin to imagine the terror.
Imagine you are driving down the road at night and all of a sudden you feel the wheels lift off the ground and then everything goes pitch black and for a few seconds you don't know where you are and then lightning flashes and lights up the sky and ground below and you see your hundreds of feet off the ground with tiny trees and houses below you and all you can do is go along for the ride where ever the tornado takes you.
@@crossroads8370and then you smack into the ground at terminal velocity and feel your bones shatter
Awesome work here. Bravo 👏🏻
This is NOT my typical type of video. But it's soo thorough and the music is PERFECT. I've watched several times!