Moore, OK twister – 10 years ago today
May 2nd, 2009 at 6:13 am by Bill Steffen under Bill's Blog, Weather
Today is the ten-year anniversary of the strongest wind ever measured on Earth. On May 3, 1999 a total of 66 tornadoes hit Oklahoma and Kansas. The worst tornado was a monster EF5 that moved along a 38-mile path into Moore and Oklahoma City. The storm tossed vehicles over ¼ mile away, totally obliterated solid homes and peeled 1” asphalt right off the streets. A portable Doppler radar measured a wind speed of 301 mph at a height of approximately 104 feet above ground level. That’s about 2.3 times the average speed of the winner of this year’s Daytona 500. The storm caused 36 fatalities, and destroyed or severely damaged over 8,000 homes. Damage from this one tornado topped 1.1 billion dollars. Adjusted for inflation it was the costliest tornado in history.
Primero!
I hope that never happens here.
o it could happen in west michagan i think this is the seson
It’s amazing we don’t see more of those around the country.
That’s some fast wind!!
Congrats to Matt Kenseth again or winning Daytona, and I felt so bad when Joey Lagano hit that wall! Thanks for the link Bill =)
I never hear about tornadoes in other countries. Do countries other than the US have tornadoes? You always hear about earthquakes, but nothing on tornadoes.
Hey Mark S.
I recieved the 2009 Davis weather Insturments catalog, I noticed they had a article in there about your weather stations..nice work Man!
My daughter survived this. 10 years ago! How time flies!
So, do tornadoes have increasing winds with increasing height in the air column? I guess it would make sense, since the tornado air column might encounter friction with the ground; something I never really thought of before…