El Reno twister was a 2.6 mile wide EF-5 tornado with winds of 295mph
Posted by
Skip Wiley on 6/4/2013, 9:33 pm
http://www.wunderground.com/blog/JeffMasters/comment.html?entrynum=2426
Posted by: Dr. Jeff Masters, 9:54 PM GMT on June 04, 2013 +37
The largest tornado in recorded history was Friday's May 31, 2013 EF-5 tornado in El Reno, Oklahoma, the National Weather Service in Norman, Oklahoma announced on Tuesday. The EF-5 re-classification was based upon Doppler radar data taken by Oklahoma University's mobile RaXPol radar. According to comments made by tornado researcher Rick Smith at a press conference today, the mobile radar was positioned on top of an overpass, and recorded winds close to the surface of up to 295 mph in satellite suction vorticies that orbited the large, main vortex. The large, main vortex had EF-4 winds of 185 mph, and the satellite suction vortices moved across the fields at that speed, and rotated on their own at speeds of up to 110 mph, giving a combined wind speed of up to 295 mph in some of the satellite vortices. It's no wonder that so many storm chasers got in trouble with this tornado, since these suction vortices moved as speeds of up to 185 mph towards them as the tornado rapidly expanded into the largest on record. The tornado killed tornado scientist Tim Samaras and his two chase partners, Paul Samaras and Carl Young, and also killed an amateur storm chaser, Richard Charles Henderson. The 295 mph winds of the El Reno tornado rank second only to the world-record 302 mph (130 m/s) winds recorded in the Moore, Oklahoma tornado of May 3, 1999. However, the Moore tornado's winds were measured at an altitude of 105 feet (32 meters), so the winds near the surface may have been higher in the El Reno tornado. |
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El Reno twister was a 2.6 mile wide EF-5 tornado with winds of 295mph - Skip Wiley, 6/4/2013, 9:33 pm Post A Reply
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