PBL says:
The craft has some considerable forward momentum at 140 kts (nose up or not). If the tail hits, the nose comes down. And stays, and slides. You don't lose 140 kts forward by converting it suddenly into rotation.
The pictures of the wing-box/rump from behind show the trees and no sliding trace, so assuming a tail strike at 140 kts airspeed this part would have had to have bounced into the air from this initial impact and come down again. I don't quite picture that. My intuition still tells me that with a tail strike and 140kts forward and still flying there is going to be a lengthy trace on the ground; which there isn't.
I am reminded of videos of the A-10 crash as Paris LBG in June 1977. Tail struck the ground first and was immediately disabled (bent upwards) - the remainder of the the ship skidded straight to a stop. (I lost a former student, Howard "Sam" Nelson, that day.)
Applying this scenario to the MD83 case, if he recognized rising terrain and pitched up, we might see a similar outcome - skidding uphill.