Photo by Zbigniew Bzdak / Chicago Tribune
This may be the most amazing tornado picture I've ever seen without a tornado in it. After obliterating a farmstead, the tornado inscribed its path across the prairie. Taken on Nov. 18th, of the Washington, Illinois tornado, by the Chicago Tribune's Zbigniew Bzdak.
There are many more photos of the aftermath of the storm (and a bigger, better version of this picture) at the Tribune.
Mike
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Where were the Sun-Times reporters with their iPhones?
Posted by: Chuck Albertson | Monday, 25 November 2013 at 07:56 PM
Until I read the caption I thought that was a street, with a drain in it!
Posted by: Robert P | Tuesday, 26 November 2013 at 06:26 AM
I've never met Zbigniew Bzdak but I appreciate his photography several times each week in my "hometown" newspaper. He's a very talented news photographer as illustrated by this brain-tattoo of an image.
Just when you thought you'd seen every possible tornado image...
Posted by: Kenneth Tanaka | Tuesday, 26 November 2013 at 11:24 AM
Wow! That's an eye-popper! The scratchy texture across the fields is really something. Very interesting – and different – perspective.
Posted by: Ed Hawco | Tuesday, 26 November 2013 at 11:55 AM
Amazing pic, it looks like a giant floor polisher went through.
I'm a little worried that Washington is getting all the media love, though - many other towns were affected by the storms, some profoundly. We took a 26' truck full of furniture from my late M-I-L's house down to the victims in Diamond, IL Sunday - many homes were lost there, too. Hopefully they won't have to compete with Washington for assistance.
Posted by: Ken Ford | Tuesday, 26 November 2013 at 12:14 PM
An intriguing image, I thought it was frost and wind patterns until I read the caption (second thought was of my first attempt with a disc-sander).
Living in the UK, which is just damp and cool, my thoughts often go out to those living in disaster zones.
best wishes phil
Posted by: Another Phil | Tuesday, 26 November 2013 at 03:10 PM
Excellent photograph!
The study of tornado cycloidal damage patterns dates back several decades and was pioneered by Dr. Ted Fujita. Here is a link to a Geophysical Monograph describing some of this early work (with lots of aerial photos):
http://www.agu.org/books/gm/v079/GM079p0479/GM079p0479.shtml
Posted by: David Blanchard | Tuesday, 26 November 2013 at 08:48 PM
In Apple's "Maps" software, if you do an aerial view of Minneapolis, you can see the path of a tornado that went through the cities a few years ago.
Here is a screen-cap of the view - from North of Minneapolis looking to the South. You can see the path going right through the cities where all of the trees and greenery were torn up. (look for the diagonal line going from upper-right to lower-left in the image). Fascinating stuff.
http://charles.robinsontwins.org/photos/2013/screenshot_105.jpg
Posted by: Charles Robinson | Wednesday, 27 November 2013 at 09:40 AM
What's amazing about that photo is that I could understand what it showed before even reading the caption.
Posted by: Ade | Thursday, 28 November 2013 at 07:07 AM