Last Week's Oklahoma Tornado Was The Widest Tornado Ever Recorded

Tuesday, June 4, 2013 - 16:50 in Earth & Climate

El Reno Tornado rbohac The record-breaking twister in the city of El Reno was 2.6 miles across. On Friday, not even two weeks after a destructive tornado ran through Moore, Oklahoma, another twister hit the city of El Reno. At last count, 18 people were confirmed dead, with six still missing, and the National Weather Service has not only categorized the storm as an EF-5--the highest on a scale of damage--but also as the widest tornado ever measured. A mobile radar unit measured the storm at 2.6 miles across, according to the National Weather Service, making it wider than the previous record holder, a 2.5-mile twister that swept across Nebraska in 2004. That means it was considerably wider than the Moore tornado, too, which at most was two miles wide. [NBC News]

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