The El Reno tornado that killed 4 storm chasers (RIP) was 2.6 miles wide (wider than Manhattan!),with multiple vortices around the main funnel,packing the strongest winds. The entire thing was rain wrapped (concealed),making it incredibly difficult to identify with the naked eye.
Something wild that's been discovered just in the last couple of decades is that multiple vortices is actually more the norm than the exception, even with smaller tornadoes. Most of the time, they're there, but they haven't condensed, so they're invisible. Either way, wedges are definitely the scariest, simply from the sheer size the damage paths can be.
I was in El Reno during the 2013 tornado my uncle lived there and we were helping him with clean up of a few of his rent properties in Moore from that tornado. We were outside watching it, thinking it was just a wall cloud because it was so big (when you live in Oklahoma you get pretty used to tornadoes) but a storm chaser drove by and told us that it was already on the ground and that it was the biggest and fastest tornado he’d ever seen and he thought there was a chance in could turn towards us. So at that point we decided it was probably time to go into the shelter. I’m still in awe of the size and power of that tornado
@patriotenfield3276 Yes, it was deadlier, but only by 1 fatality. The 2013 El Reno tornado stayed mostly over open land. The NWS survey teams focus on the property damage to give it's rating, and because of that it was given an EF3 rating. Storm Chasers to this day say that the tornado should have been given an EF5 rating. The 2011 El Reno tornado had max winds of 151 mph. The 2013 El Reno tornado had max winds at 302 mph, the second highest ever recorded. The 2013 El Reno is the largest tornado ever recorded in history, but it's wind speed is still lower than the 1999 Bridge Creek-Moore which was measured at 318 mph. So yes, the 2011 El Reno was and EF5, the 2013 was an EF3 (because it had weakened by the time it hit property), the 2011 tornado still pales in comparison to the 2013 tornado.
The only I can say comes close is when I was in Jamaica as a child and we were hit by a hurricane. The whole country was covered by it, the screaming winds sounded like a freight train and the concrete walls groaned, tree bark stripped off on many trees across the country. Rooves gone, parts of communities sliding down the mountains. And lightning of every colour but black and so frequent and bright that without a clock you can't tell if it's midnight or high noon.
I'll never forget hearing a caller call in saying he saw lights moving around in the woods behind his house. It took him a while to realise they were the headlights of cars being tossed by a massive cone tornado.
@@bananabreadloaf I’m not sure what the casualty count was, but there’s a reason houses in tornado alley have basements. A tornado will sweep a house away and leave the basement intact. As long as you’re underground, you’ll be okay.
@@techi9818That's not always true. Many homes are on a crawlspace or slab in these areas. Sometimes because the water table or soil type won't allow for a basement. Also let's not forget about our friends in the trailer parks.
I was in the 1979 Wichita Falls, Tx tornado. It was a wedge, and that’s my exact reaction. The sirens were going off and I saw people in the street pointing at something. When I stepped outside I saw it. I thought, “Oh God. Please tell me that’s rain.” Because it looked like an intense, localized downpour. When I saw the debris spinning around in it I went in, grabbed my little brother, and threw my mom’s mattress over us.
My grandpa passed from that tornado. They say its probably even higher than f5 if there was a category. At my grandma's funeral in 2017 they still talked about it
@@MermaidMakes I'm a combat medic veteran and a doctor. I've seen more hell than most people see in a very long life. Nope. It's not easy. Nothing in life is. I have a punching bag that helps. And racquetball is the best anger management around. Thank you
@@kdallas3966 thank you for your service. I respect you so much for everything you’ve done!! I have C-ptsd though mine is from childhood trauma, but I have also seen things I would not wish on anyone. Exercise is an excellent way to unload all the anger and frustration from what we’ve been through. I should really get a punching bag. Haha.
I'm glad I live in northern Brazil, we don't have these scary things over here, we have, crime, corruption and lots of tropical diseases, but thank God not tornadoes
I live in an active area. You get to a point where you know whats coming - the color of the sky, the shape of the clouds, the "green lightning" effect, the blast of the approaching outflow boundary, the hail, the sideways stinging rain. And then there comes those terrible few moments when you realize that seconds are precious commodities and your next decisions will define your life expectancy. Serious stuff.
@@ghostsuru8429 Definitely not fake, I don't know where you live, but we do get the odd tornado in Ireland. My house was hit by one 1/Jan/2004, it knocked down some extremely heavy scaffolding onto my husband's car and flattened it, what a mess.
I live in the North West of England, not far from an area in Tameside where a tornado hit at around 10 pm on 27th December 2023. It demolished three dwellings on a line of row houses and it caused a great deal of damage in the surrounding infrastructure and services. These kinds of extreme weather events are becoming far more frequent in the Republic of Ireland and the UK, it’s very concerning.
Believe it or not, you can have wedge EF1 tornadoes and rope EF5 tornadoes. So all should be treated as if they are high end. You never really know until it's all over with.
Agreeing with OP, but I think what should also be said, is that the EF scale doesn't tell us anything about the tornado's strength itself. The EF scale is only a reference for the damage it caused while on the ground. For instance, there's been at least one tornado with a record of 300+ mph wind speed, but was classified as an EF3 because it didn't do enough damage to be classified as an EF 5. That's why we should treat every tornado like it's going to be a big one. Cause you never know if it actually is or not.
@@ghostsuru8429That’s partially true. The EF scale can tell how powerful a tornado was IF the tornado hit structures strong enough to show evidence of its power. A ferocious tornado in an open, grass pasture can be rated EF-1 due to no evidence of its strength. However, a weak tornado will never be rated higher than it should be if it happens to hit an area with all kinds of structures and only causes weak tornado damage. Weak tornadoes can also be deadly if they happen to hit you with a piece of debris in the wrong spot or cause something to fall on you, like a tree branch.
@@camifxyeah a rope or any kind of "skinny" tornado being an EF5 is particularly dangerous because they'll tend to move on the ground faster and have a tighter core of rotation. Almost providing a rapid explosive force. A thick boi wedge can be just as dangerous but usually is easier to see coming (except night-nadoes and rain wrapped ones)and in a lot of cases it moves slower. But those will scour the ground like a slow moving powerful street scrubber
@@justinbonds2002 Those skinny ones are also the terrifying ones that act like they have a mind of their own and just murder or spare at a god's whims....
They probably meant that when these things first form and come down, people don't recognize the initial signs because it's so huge, and if it drops down right on top of them, what can they do? I know one thing I'll take California earthquakes over tornadoes any day
@@janew7008I was in the Loma Prieta quake. Not fun, with destruction extending over 60 miles from epicenter. Now I’m in the Sierras where quakes are mild, but have had near misses with wildfires, severe smoke, blackouts due to windstorms. I estimate I shoveled 22 tons of snow from last winter’s worst storm.
It's scary when you go outside and you see the entire wall cloud on the ground. (also wedge tornados look smaller than they actually are. That wind field is invisible and it's death. )
@@janew7008I’ll take tornadoes over huge earthquakes. At least tornadoes can be predicted and give you time to run to shelter. Even the strongest tornadoes can’t pancake a double decker bridge, squishing the people on the bottom layer. 😬
They're cool. I love watching them. I've chased after them on foot. Kayak and motorcycle. Always wanted to get as close as I could. Got kids now tho. Can't be an idiot
Yesterday I survive a direct hit on my house in Clarksville TN.. IT WAS ABSOLUTELY HORRIFYING!!! I'm utterly traumatized. If I hear anything that sound like it I jump.. I'm never ever ever looking at stormes them same. They are deadly dangerous. Stay safe & prepared ❤
I think the shape of the tornado is not the most important. There are also pretty recognizable wedge shaped ones. What actually matters the most is whether it is rain wrapped or not. A rain wrapped tornado causes most of the problems that the videomaker is talking about.
@@evilsharkey8954 yeah but most wedges DO come rain wrapped. And usually are E4 on top of it because of the conditions needed to sustain a wedge are already ridiculously dangerous to begin with. Hence why they get called the "most deadly" they have a general higher chance of killing professionals as well as regular folks due to not being seen.
@@chey7691 If a tornado is rain wrapped, you can’t see it, so you can’t determine what shape it is. Any tornado shape can be rain wrapped, from weak ropes to massive wedges and multi-vortex tornadoes.
@@evilsharkey8954 dude I have talked to you before, you aren't all there clearly. So let me explain it with crayons. You can see it IF YOU ARE CLOSE ENOUGH, not many survive such a close encounter. Hence why it gets called the most deadly kind of tornado, it kills more amateur and professional storm chasers. So yeah if it looks like a wall of rain denser than usual in a certain part and wind blowing weirdly RUN.
@@chey7691 You’re missing the point and being a prick about it. Many types of tornadoes can be rain wrapped. They’re ALL dangerous when they’re rain wrapped because you can’t see them until you’re very close, if at all (if it’s dark enough, you’re not going to see that thing until you’re in it). The Venn diagram of rain wrapped tornadoes and wedges is not total overlap. Besides, “wedge” is not a scientific term. It’s chaser slang for a tornado that appears wider than the distance from the ground to the cloud base. It’s a descriptor of shape and proportions, nothing else.
My dad survived the 1974 Omaha, NE EF4 wedge tornado (& a plane crash, gas explosion, shooting, stabbing, woke up & started walking & talking after a 3-month coma). Thought he'd be here forever with that record, but it was a heart attack in 2019. His description of being in a massive tornado was truly nightmare fuel.
That stovepipe twister was a real looker, wow So far no twisters have touched down in my area, but we've had some very ominous funnel clouds that didn't touch down and we've seen more waterspouts
Oh, my sister agrees with you! She was driving through Nebraska, with a car that looked like a golf ball (totally unrelated hail storm), and realized… the air is green. So she turned on the radio. To hear the NWS Severe Weather Alarm. Three counties were named as having a ‘funnel on the ground. Seek shelter now’. She’s thinking “I don’t know where I am!” Looking around. And seeing the funnel. She called her best friend and said, “If you don’t hear from me in an hour, please call my Mom and let her know I’m in Nebraska. I can see the tornado.”
Everyone of those can run you through with debris, and you don't even have to be that close. Most tornadoes fatalities and damage comes from debris being flung at ridiculous speeds. But there is no denying that one that just picks up your whole car or house is absolutely terrifying.
If it's to quiet be on the lookout you can feel it in the air The leafs on the tree point in a direction you know where it's coming from if the birds get the hell out of there you need to do the same
Jo: "Where's my truck...?" [the truck crashes back to earth, right in the middle of the road, in front of the truck Melissa is driving] Jo: "There it is!"
Didn't know there were that many tornados. I was in a truck stop, very cloudy, people on the CB were saying there was a tornado close to the truck stop, I kept looking and didn't see anything. They said they could see it, but it mustve been a wedge tornado hidden in the clouds.
Any rain-wrapped tornado is hard to see, so it could've been one of the other forms and those people knew what to look for. Regardless, I am glad it didn't come at you!
@@aste4949 Thanks. I thought I was safe with 40-50,000lb steel coils on my trailer. How's a tornado going to lift that? My cab was aluminum, it would have lifted that like a gingerbread house, I was so naive.
@@happydays8171An EF 5 wouldn’t even be able to lift those coils, but it would batter the cab with 250+ mph debris and turn the windows into the world’s sharpest sandblasting medium.
The scariest tornadoes are the ones that hit at night when it is dark outside.😢. People can't see the cloud formation, and they depend solely on radar and on warning systems.🙏
I remember one time I was returning back to Arizona from Colorado and we almost went through the mountains but decided the storm overhanging them was too narly for our taste. It was only later we learned there was a tornado in that very same region. So man talk about dodging a bullet. Or rather a plank of wood through the chest.
One time I was in West Texas and they had huge dirt devils everywhere. One was coming across the road and I thought nothing of it but when I drove past it rocked the heck out of my car.
I can barely see any of the video because there is so much junk covering it. Search suggestion, channel name, link to another video, long video title with hashtags, "original sound", not to mention all the usual interaction buttons on the side. And apparently there are captions, but I can't read them because they are also hidden behind the junk. Please keep this in mind when making shorts. The actual visible part of the screen is tiny.
Also any tornado can be "rain-wrapped" which means that it is entirely masked by heavy rain and you can't see it. Keep a battery powered radio and take cover as soon as you hear a warning. My friend who was killed by an EF4 had only 2 minutes warning before she was hit. This kind of late warning is rare, but it still happens.
Oklahoma has seen its fair share of devastating wedge tornados. A lot of comments point this out but another factor is whether the tornado is rain wrapped. If it's rain wrapped you can't see it cause it just looks like clouds. If you live in a place where tornados are common know what a wall cloud looks like and what other signs come with tornados because those may be the only warning you get.
Umm wedge tornados are not as wide as they are tall. Wedge tornados are wider than their base height. Base height refers to the lower part of storm where the clouds end. The average thunder storm is about 7.5 miles high. The widest ever about 3.2 miles in width
@@bruhhastakenYeah how dare them know more about the science and facts of something actually interesting and good to know. How DARE them correct someone on important facts. Ballfondler detected or whatever.
I have been terrified by tornadoes since I first saw "The Wizard Of Oz" at about age 5.I had and still have nightmares of being chased by tornadoes. Every time the sirens go off, it freaks me out. Last year we had about half a dozen in the area and some damage was done to homes just a couple miles away. So they scare me. But I'm also awestruck and fascinated by them. The violent and capricious nature of nature itself is incredible. I've never seen a tornado or funnel cloud. But if I did I would be terrified and transfixed by the raw power of the earth and sky. Lots of adrenaline. It'd be really cool. At least until it clobbered me. Just the same, I'd rather not come face to face with a tornado, thank you very much! 😳🙏🏻☮️✌️😁
Tell me about it. 2 years all lost exactly from having my town cut in half by a ef 3/4 then going to parallel twin tornados today on my bday again had another huge wedge come thru Dec 11th 21 and Dec 9th 23 tornado outbreaks and this one today decided to attack north Nashville and Bowling Green again. Welcome to global warming up is down fall is spring and Kentucky is tornado ally at night.
Technically, it’s not the shape of the tornado that makes wedges hard to see. It’s being rain wrapped. Any rain wrapped tornado is especially dangerous, since you don’t know what’s hiding behind the rain curtains. The El Reno was a notorious rain wrapped killer, taking three experienced storm chasers. They knew there was a tornado in there, somewhere, but they had no idea it had grown to an unprecedented 2.6 mile wide monster and changed direction.
My family church was destroyed in that tornado. Mt. Moriah. My uncles house just missed being hit by it. I was in Sellersburg at the time, but I live in Henryville now. Our families probably know each other, both my parents graduated from Henryville.
I remember living in Kansas when I was younger and going through tornado season. I remember once seeing a semi trailer fly by like a sheet of paper, and another time finding a 2 x 4 board through a pine tree… thank goodness we didn’t live there long 😅 We moved to earthquake, forest fires and landslides instead. 🙆🏻♀️
Hearing these brave men’s terrified screams made me cry, pray for them as my heart breaks. I remember there were 4 storm chasers lost due to that storm. May God be with these brave weather people putting their lives at risk to protect and save us. 🙏🏻
There's a rare subtype of the wedge tornado, which has been nicknamed The Walking Deadman, a multivortex tornado... a rather famous (or infamous) one was the May 27, 1997 Jarrell TX ef5 tornado
About two weeks ago, we had a devastating EF4 tornado in Kentucky fortunately we were not in the path of the tornado but I’m just praying for all the people that died that day❤❤❤
That old movie Twister was the main reason I recognized in terror when one touched down outside my home in upstate NY, many years ago. I started rushing my sisters into our home's hallway, while our elders stoof in shock as they stared out the windows. We were lucky the worst that happened was the willow tree at the edge of the yard being yanked out, falling across the road. While the willow was an heirloom tree from my dad's grandmother, our family counted our blessings when we checked up on the rest of the county. So many other people's homes weren't so lucky.
From the age of like four or five (starting, in large part, thanks to The Wizard of Oz), I developed a *SEVERE* phobia of tornadoes and would be terrified that one was imminent ANY TIME the mildest thunderstorm passed through, even though the area (Pennsylvania, in the Appalachian region) has, historically, almost NEVER gotten any. I also learned about wedge tornadoes at a VERY young age because one of my early grade school teachers grew up in an area that had a wide variety, and high frequency, of tornadoes, and would tell our class stories about her memories of those storms, the warning signs of them, and the measures her family and school took to protect themselves from them (which also caused me to develop a weird fixation over the fact that we didn't have a storm cellar)... and learning about HALF A MILE TO TWO AND A HALF MILE WIDE tornadoes that could move in fast, totally unpredictable paths scared the living shit out of me even more. My family members, and even my teachers, would CONSTANTLY tell us that it was "impossible" for tornadoes to hit anywhere NEAR our town because the mountains "blocked" them and "protected us" and whatnot.. but, I never trusted that logic (which either made me better at seeing through lies than everyone else my age, or just smarter than the adults if they actually believed the nonsense they were spewing, because none of that is based in reality, at all, and didn't make sense to me, even as a young child, because I figured that, if that WERE the case, then the mountains would ALSO block things like blizzards and even REGULAR thunderstorms). Anyway, after YEARS of anxiety and legit panic attacks every time it rained even moderately hard, as well as vivid nightmares about my house getting destroyed and causing my family to be graphically torn apart, etcetera, a tornado actually DID end up hitting my area overnight when I was in late grade school (maybe fifth or sixth grade), and I SLEPT THROUGH IT-even though it broke a tree in half RIGHT in my NEXT door NEIGHBOR'S yard and sent half of it through the back of his house (RIGHT outside my bedroom window), and tore up a TON of shit across basically the entire town as it skipped around the whole area, lol.
I experienced a wedge tornado going through west Kansas driving on Hwy 50 towards Colorado. It was over a mile wide! Horrible distruction my family and I witnessed!
Yikes! I was in Kentucky once and there was a tornado in the distance. There was an announcement to go to the basement. When I saw the Texans hot foot it to safety, I moved quickly because they weren't messing around.
That was the Joplin Mo tornado. It was 1.8 mile wide and it's widest and a EF5. People that we over 70 miles away could see it and some people that far away had debris from it.
I live in Colorado. When tornadoes sweep along here they span a mile wide and move just like a plow generally in one direction north to south for miles. In the plains area near DIA you'll see sporadic sections of slanted fences along the fields to break up the wind so it's harder for them to accumulate into their hugeness 😮
I lived in Wichita Falls Texas in 1979 when 3 tornados came together and formed a tornado a mile wild at the base and went across the ground for 9 miles. Sometimes the middle one would pick up and the 2houses on the sides would be destroyed and the one in the middle would be practically untouched.
Ooh, I get goosebumps in pure awe when I look at tornados. (On screen; I'm Swedish, and we thankfully don't really have tornados here) When there's thunder storms I sometimes can't help myself from looking out the window. The power of nature is so mezmerizing!
I live in Alabama & have since 1985. I've seen all of those types of tornadoes. And lived thankfully! None of them turn out pretty! Two towns I've lived in have been leveled (think bomb) by EF-5's. In both we were spared by mere yards! Edit: When I was just 6 there were 5 tornadoes touching down at once & we were on the interstate. A wind gust spun us around like in the wizard of oz! My mother regained control & pulled over under an over pass with many other cars. I don't remember anything else. But it was wild seeing 4 tornadoes in front of us & one behind! They came out of nowhere!
I've lived in Tornado country most my life, all of them are deadly, unpredictable monsters sowing destruction. I've seen a few form... but, the one I saw in Millington TN in 85? Was the scariest. We watched an Anvil Head move in, and the whole face started to look like a tidal wave, then it formed a Wedge. It was huge, and it looked like it was on Navy Road.... it was MILES away in Arkansas. We only saw the edge of the storm, and it flooded parts of the base.
When I was a kid, there was an F-5 tornado that looked like that. It was two miles wide, not kidding. May 3rd, 1999, Oklahoma City. Absolutely massive damage. It was coming in the direction of our house, but we lived near a lake, so it kind of "jumped" over our house. Very scary experience. We didn't have a shelter. Just sat with pillows over our heads in the closet. A day I won't forget.
The dangerous thing about tornadoes is they are so unpredictable. They can show up with little to no warning depending on the velocity. They sling debris at an extremely high rate of speed. They hop around! One home can be completely 🌪️destroyed while the house next to it is hardly touched. Best thing to have is a storm shelter!
I live in Florida and people always question how i can do that considering hurricanes. The average hurricane, when it hits my property, flies at about 60-100mph. We also have days to prepare and know exactly where it is at all times. The average tornado, a fickle and indecisive bastard, is much more concentrated and much harder to track.
Have you ever stopped and imagined what tornadoes on other planets must be like? Glass wrapped tornadoes spinning at mach speeds is pure nightmare fuel.
My college town was hit by a wedge tornado during the tornado outbreak years ago. They said it was over a mile long and it unfortunately killed 2 people. The town is very rural though, so even though it left a path of destruction, it wasn’t as bad as it would have if it came through a more highly populated area.
