By swapping bettween different imagery dates in Google Earth you can get a fairly good idea of the tree damage/which ones are missing etc
(Imagery coverage/dates for this location are surprisingly good 13 July 2004, 30 Jan 2006, 16 Aug 2006)
here's what I could pick out
The damage appears to start at the west side of a flat app 2.3 km WSW of where the damage track crosses the Kangaroo Valley Rd.
I've circled in red the areas that appear to sustained the greater damage.
The dashed red lines indicate the app limit of visible tree damage (on the imagery), where earlier (2004) imagery is available
The dashed orange lines are apparent visible limit of tree damage where there is no earlier imagery to check against.
In the area on the east side of Irvines Rd there appears to be a number of trees that have fallen in different directions E SE Nth NW etc
But without being able to see on the ground this could always be a result of the trees being cut down rather than blown over.
Where the path crosses the ridge at the southern end of a plateau app 1.5km WSW of Kangaroo Valley Rd the visible damage appears patchy and identifiable damage appears more limited to a few larger trees on the Western and Eastern slopes of the ridge.
The only tree damage outside the dashed path appears to be a couple of downed trees app 300-370m NNW of the large White shed at the property 600m west of Kangaroo Valley Rd damage path crossing. This is at the base of the ridge slope on the Nth side at the eastern end of the plateau. This tree damage could possibly be as a result of wind interaction/amplification due to terrain?
I'll leave more detailed interpretation of the whether it is tornadic damage or not to others.
But to me a path of extensive damage around 3.7km long and up to 300m wide, that appears to have varying degrees of damage along its length and appears not consistant to me seems at first glance to more suggestive of tornadic damage.
Having said that appart from the trees at the eastern end near Irvine Rd which may or may not represent all wind damage. The rest of the visible felled trees, where the direction they have fallen is visible, are all laying to the East or SE, possibly more indicative of straight line winds.
Also interesting is that the damage path appears to cross 4 areas with a number of buildings. Although some of the immediate grounds seem affected only one structure (at the western end of the damage path) appears not to be in the same state after the event in 2006, although it is one year on.
Good spotting for picking this damage detail up on the imagery Michael, as it is't often the imagery dates (in Oz) fit well with the damage event dates (and Google hasn't been consistantly updating much in the way of highres imagery for a while)
Paul
