ASK THE METEOROLOGIST
“How big can a tornado get? How can you tell a tornado is on its way?”
Kristapher Kinzel, Medford
Pretty big! The largest tornado on record touched down on May 31, 2013 just south of El Reno, Oklahoma. At its widest, the base of the tornado measured 2.6 miles across. To put that into perspective, that’s about the same distance between Phoenix and Talent in southern Oregon. The tornado was rated an EF-3, which would put the top wind speeds at 165 mph. However, instruments from the University of Oklahoma recorded wind speeds of 295 mph just above the surface, which would make it an EF-5. There was no storm damage to support the evidence of those wind speeds, so it remains, officially, an EF-3.
So how can we, as meteorologists, tell a tornado is on its way? We rely heavily on radar. The radar sends a beam out that bounces of things like raindrops, hail, and sometimes even debris in a tornado. By looking at these returns from the radar, we can tell if the storm is rotating – the first sign a tornado is forming. We can also tell if a tornado is a particularly damaging one, because the radar returns will show up “brighter” that the raindrops, indicating that debris has been lofted into the air by the tornado. Don’t forget, we also have trained storm spotters on the ground that can tell us, and law enforcement, when a tornado has touched down.
Great question, Kristapher!
Chief Meteorologist Kate McKenna