‘Amazing’ Oklahoma Tornado Was the Largest in US History
A tornado that swept through Oklahoma on Friday was the widest tornado in American history, the National Weather Service said Tuesday.
The El Reno, Okla., tornado scraped out a damage path up to 2.6 miles wide and 16.2 miles long, a swath at points wider and longer than Manhattan. The storm broke the record held by a 2.5-mile-wide Hallam, Neb., twister.
“It was amazing and something that’s extremely rare,” Howard Bluestein, professor of meteorology at the University of Oklahoma, said of the storm’s strength — which now presents a puzzle for researchers whose solution could help mean the difference between life and death.
The human aftermath left by Friday’s twister was painfully apparent, with at least 18 people killed in the latest massive tornado to carve through Oklahoma this spring.
The storm itself, however, remains much more of a mystery.
Researchers don’t know why the twister got as big and powerful as it did, and its strength wasn’t immediately apparent as it scoured a rural area, leaving few of the physical clues that help determine wind speeds.
“If you look at a wheat field, how do you know how strong the wind was?” Bluestein said, referring to the technique of using ground damage to measure storm strength.
The twister was originally rated an EF-3 before further measurements boosted the storm’s rating to EF-5, the highest possible.
More: ‘Amazing’ Oklahoma Tornado Was the Largest in US History