A timelapse video from wmctv shows the progress of the destructive Oklahoma tornado.
Update, 10:05 am, May 21, 2013: The Oklahoma City medical examiner said that at least 91 people had died as a result of the tornado but later revised that count, saying that only 24 deaths had been confirmed. Emergency workers were still working early this morning to make their way through debris at Plaza Towers Elementary School, where seven children have been found dead.
Originally posted on May 20: In Moore, Oklahoma, a suburb of Oklahoma City, an incredibly powerful tornado just came and went, a nearly hour-long ordeal that, as of the time of this writing, has trapped 75 school children in their school, injured hundreds of people and left a city in ruins.
A meteorologist for the local news station KFOR called the tornado “the worst tornado in the history of the world.” That assessment is quite apt.
There are a lot of parameters by which a tornado can be deemed the worst, and by pretty much all counts today’s Moore tornado is up there. The National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration keeps a list of historical tornadoes—devastating twisters known for their size, their duration and their destruction. Though the Moore tornado doesn’t trump any of them, its combination of size, strength and duration made it an incredibly dangerous storm.
One factor that really set today’s Moore tornado apart was its staggering size. According to The New York Times, today’s tornado was “perhaps a mile wide.” Other reports put it closer to two miles in width. According to NOAA, the largest tornado on record hit Hallam, Nebraska in 2004. That twister was two-and-a-half miles wide. “This is probably close to the maximum size for tornadoes; but it is possible that larger, unrecorded ones have occurred,” writes NOAA of the 2004 tornado.
On top of its massive girth, today’s tornado was also incredibly strong. The Associated Press reports that wind speeds in the twister hit upwards of 199 miles per hour (320 kilometers per hour). The record holder, says NOAA, saw winds peaking at 302 miles per hour (486 kilometers per hour.) That storm, unfortunately, hit pretty much the exact same place as this one. It swept just north of Moore on May 3, 1999.
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