Tornado with highest wind speed on record touches down 20 years ago today (2024)

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Tornado with highest wind speed on record touches down 20 years ago today? ›

What are the highest tornado wind speeds recorded by a Doppler on Wheels? The University of Illinois team calculated wind speeds as high as 309-318 mph with the tornado in Greenfield.

What are the highest tornado wind speeds recorded by a Doppler on Wheels? The University of Illinois team calculated wind speeds as high as 309-318 mph with the tornado in Greenfield.

The strongest wind speed

Doppler radars can give some remotely sensed wind speeds although these are not always accurate. Despite this, on 3 May 1999, a tornado in Oklahoma was measured to reach 302 mph, the highest winds ever found on the Earth's surface.

The 1999 Bridge Creek–Moore tornado was a large, long-lived and exceptionally powerful F5 tornado in which the highest wind speeds ever measured globally were recorded at 135 metres per second (302 mph; 486 km/h) by a Doppler on Wheels (DOW) radar.

In total, two tornadoes received the rating of F6, but both were later downgraded to F5. Based on aerial photographs of the damage it caused, Fujita assigned the strongest tornado of the 1974 Super Outbreak, which affected Xenia, Ohio, a preliminary rating of F6 intensity ± 1 scale.

The only evidence indicating wind speeds found in the tornado was the damage left behind by tornadoes that struck populated areas. Some believed they reach 400 miles per hour (640 kilometers per hour); others thought they might exceed 500 miles per hour (800 km/h), and perhaps even be supersonic.

The highest accepted forward speed of an intense tornado on record was 73 mph (117 km/h) from the 1925 Tri-State tornado, occurring between the Illinois cities of Gorham and Murphysboro. Other weak tornadoes have approached or exceeded this speed, but this is the fastest forward movement observed in a major tornado.

1. Tri-State Tornado: Missouri, Illinois, Indiana (1925) On March 18, 1925, the deadliest tornado in U.S. history, the Tri-State Tornado of 1925, tore a 219-mile-long path across Missouri, Illinois and Indiana.

The title for the highest wind gust ever recorded is actually a tie. Mobile Doppler radar detected a wind gust to 302 mph (486 km/h) in a tornado that struck Bridge Creek, Oklahoma on May 3, 1999. Another gust to 302 mph was recorded in a tornado near El Reno, Oklahoma on May 31, 2013.

Texas leads the nation in the number of tornadoes that occur each year on average, followed by Kansas. Texas leads the nation for the average number each year only because of its size.

Is a 500 mph tornado possible? ›

The few measurements of violent tornado winds that have been made using Doppler radar and photogrammetry suggest that the maximum possible tangential wind speeds generated by tornadoes are in the range of 125 to 160 metres per second, or 450 to 575 km per hour (about 410 to 525 feet per second, or 280 to 360 miles per ...

(1,307 ft) by Matt Suter 🇺🇸On 12 March 2006 19 year. old Matt Suter (USA) was engulfed by a tornado while.

Discussion. The so-called Tri-State Tornado traveled an exact heading N 69° E for 183 of its 219 mile track. It was on the ground for 3 ½ hours and killed an estimated 695 people.

An F12 tornado would have winds of about 740 MPH, the speed of sound. Roughly 3/4 of all tornadoes are EF0 or EF1 tornadoes and have winds that are less than 100 MPH. EF4 and EF5 tornadoes are rare but cause the majority of tornado deaths.

That devastating twister left behind EF-5 damage in its wake, the most severe category on the Enhanced Fujita Scale that uses damage to estimate a tornado's winds. And as of 2024, it's the last tornado anywhere in North America to receive this scale-topping rating.

The states with the highest number of F5 and EF5 rated tornadoes since data was available in 1950 are Alabama and Oklahoma, each with seven tornadoes. Iowa, Kansas, and Texas each are tied for second-most with six. The state with the highest number of F5 and EF5 tornadoes per square mile, however, was Iowa.

The version used today—the Enhanced Fujita Scale—ranges from EF0 tornadoes with winds of 65 to 85 miles an hour, to EF5 tornadoes with winds exceeding 200 miles an hour.

The chart below compares the two scales. The original Fujita Scale actually goes up to F12. An F12 tornado would have winds of about 740 MPH, the speed of sound.