F4 Tornado Rips Through Capital City of Alberta - 1987
This is the story of the deadliest natural disaster to hit Edmonton, Alberta, Canada.
Welcome to Edmonton Alberta (my hometown) in the year of '87.
This first episode introduces you to this small northern city in Canada in the late 80's where an F4 tornado struck on July 31st.
Sources for this series on the Black Friday Tornado:
Wikipedia:
Edmonton Sun:
Commemorative edition Black Friday print with proceeds to tornado relief fund - Paul Stanway
Edmonton Journal
CTV Edmonton
CBC
UPI Archives
Starting as a large supercell thunderstorm to the south, this storm quickly moved North passing through a small town called Leduc. This is where the first funnel cloud was witnessed before it came into contact with the ground. It continued its path toward the capital city of Alberta.
Episode 1 focuses on the impact this tornado had as it struck Millwoods, the most south-eastern point of the city. Creating F2 level of damage and growing to an F3 as it moved its way throughout the suburban neighbourhood.
Edmonton
Edmonton in the 80's
Known as "The City of Champions", Edmonton in the late 80's is a city celebrated for their sports teams. The Edmonton Oilers are on a winning streak with Wayne Gretzky leading the team to Stanley Cup victories and the CFL team making strides in the Canadian football scene.
This capital city of Alberta has a population of around 600,000 at this time and is the northern-most urban city in North America. It is surrounded by prairies and farmland with a large river separating its South and North side.
Fujita Scale
Tornadoes are measured by the "F" (or Fujita Scale) based on the level of damage they cause. It has since been replaced by the "EF" (or Enhanced Fujita Scale). As the "F" scale was used during this event, we will be using it throughout these episodes.
The below is a quick breakdown to a sense of size and power as the Black Friday becomes an F2 tornado in Millwoods, grows to an F3 before becoming an F4 in Refinery Row and returning to F2/F3 as it hits the small community of Evergreen Mobile
Fujita Scale | Wind Speed Estimate | Frequency | Potential Damage |
F0 | 40-72 mph | 44% | Light damage |
F1 | 73 - 112 mph | 34% | Moderate damage |
F2 | 113 - 157 mph | 16% | Significant damage |
F3 | 158 - 206 mph | 4% | Severe damage |
F4 | 207 - 260 mph | 1% | Devastating damage |
F5 | 261 - 318 mph | 0.10% | Incredible damage |
This data pulled from Wikipedia.
Supercell Thunderstorms
Photo credit: Camille Seaman.
Nearly all supercells produce some sort of severe weather (large hail or damaging winds) but only 30 percent or less produce tornadoes.
You can see from the incredible photo captured by Camille Seaman the structure of this storm but also how foreboding it would be to see this moving across the prairies. This is not a photo from Alberta, or Black Friday - this is to give you a sense of what the storm could have looked like as it moved North East towards the capital city of Alberta.
Millwoods
This neighbourhood is the most south-eastern point of the city and the first to be struck by the Black Friday tornado. Sharing images captured from that day to give you a sense of the enormous size of the tornado as it hit this small community.
And some incredible video footage of two twisters inside the parent tornado going through the neighbourhood.
This whole video is amazing if you want to watch the full 6 minutes of footage from Millwoods. I've started it halfway so you can see the incredible shot of the multi-vortex tornado.
Remember to kiss, squeeze, hug your loved ones. And stay tuned for the next episode as the Black Friday tornado reaches its peak intensity as an F4 tornado as it crashes through a heavily populated industrial area.
Comments