10 Tornado Facts

It's tornado season. Here's 10 facts on one of natures most powerful forces.

[samuelstephens]

There are some errors here.

Fact #1: The 1925 "Tri-State" tornado was the deadliest tornado in US history, but not the deadliest tornado in recorded history. There have been a number of deadlier tornadoes, most of them occurring in Bangladesh. The 1989 Daultipur-Salturia is officially the deadliest tornado in world history, killing ~1, 300 people. A tornado in 1964 in the Magura and Narail Districts may have been even deadlier.

Fact #2: While the 2011 Joplin, MO tornado was the most expensive tornado in raw numbers, the 1896 St. Louis, MO/East St. Louis, IL tornado was notably more costly. Very conservative estimations put the damages at $3.2 billion normalized and the most realistic estimations suggest costs as high as $4.3 billion.

Fact #3: The exact wind speeds within the 1999 Bridge Creek-Moore, OK tornado are not known. Doppler radar doesn't get nice exact numbers, but measures the movement of debris and water molecules to get an approximate range with standard deviations. In the 1999 case, winds velocities of 280-322 mph were measured at 95 feet above the surface. An estimated adjustment of 318 mph was initially given, but later downgraded to 301 mph. This is possibly the highest winds measured in a tornado (the 2013 El Reno, OK tornado had a higher upper bound to its range but a lower adjusted estimation), but this doesn't mean a whole lot since only a tiny fraction of tornadoes have been measured by radar and those that have were only measured briefly.

Fact #4: The 2013 El Reno, OK tornado is officially the widest tornado on record, though unofficially, some may have been wider. Tom Grazulis stated that the 1985 Parker Dam, PA tornado leveled a swath of forrest at least 2.5 miles wide as it ripped through Moshannon State Forest. The 1999 Crescent-Mulhall, OK tornado had Doppler measured winds of 85 mph extend in a 4.3 mile diameter around the center of the tornado and winds of 185 mph extend in a 1 mile diameter, although whether or not these winds were actually tornadic were never confirmed by ground survey. A number of tornadoes throughout history has widths exceeding 2.5 miles.

Fact #7: The EF5 range starts at 201 mph, not 200 mph. The recent Rochelle-Fairdale, IL tornado had a wind speed estimation of 200 mph and was rated EF4.

Fact #9: While the area known as "tornado alley" is traditionally thought of as the Great Plains region, the truth is a significantly larger portion of the country is at risk. Historically, the worst tornado outbreaks with multiple violent, long-track tornadoes happen east of the Mississippi River (1920, 1932, 1952, 1965, 1974, 1985, 2011).

[thepurespartanify]

00:00-00:01 That's what she said!