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Written by: Brandon Molyneaux
Tornadoes are one of nature's most fascinating phenomena. They come in all shapes, sizes, and intensities and occur all around the world. The United States is responsible for a good portion of these tornadoes, with a large amount being in Dixie Alley and Tornado Alley.Throughout the creation of this list, I kept a running list of sources and additional articles and listed them below each tornado event. I want to thank Jennifer Narramore in assisting finding articles for a couple of these tornadoes.
All tornadoes listed here come from the Storm Prediction Center's tornado database. I have included the code I used at the end of the article to show how I got this data.
#10: A 4-way tie: 1.70 miles
Edmonson, TX:
This tornado started just to the north of Edmonson, Texas and only moved 5 miles. During it's (relatively) short journey, the tornado grew to 1.70 miles but only bringing F2 damage.
Kentucky:This tornado moved through Boone and Kenton counties. Out of the 15 tornadoes recorded on this day, this one had the 3rd longest path. A tornado up in Michigan had a path length of 16.6 miles, while another had a path length of 12.4 miles. Both of these tornadoes were rated F4.
Daytona Beach, FL:
This tornado occurred in a scenario that is unlike any on this list: during Hurricane Charley. Charley was the second major hurricane of the 2004 Atlantic hurricane season, making landfall as a category 4 hurricane. Charley was the third costliest hurricane at the time, trailing Katrina and Andrew.Personal Account (Hurricane Charley): I rode Charley out when I lived in Florida. It wasn't a fun time.
Additional information: NWS Summary of Hurricane Charley
Greensburg, KS:
Almost every meteorologist and chaser knows or has heard about this tornado, primarily because it was not only one of the 59 (at the time of writing) F/EF5 tornadoes, but also because of it's impacts. This was the first EF-5 tornado to be recorded since the implementation of the Enhanced Fujita (EF) scale (which was implemented in February 2007). This unfortunately was a very devastating tornado to the Greensburg community.
Dan Robinson (Twitter account) was one of the chasers chasing this tornado. Here is his perspective on the tornado:
Dan Robinson (Twitter account) was one of the chasers chasing this tornado. Here is his perspective on the tornado:
Articles and NWS summary: US Tornadoes, NWS
9. Yazoo City, MS: 1.75 miles
This tornado started west of Talulah, LA and trekked almost 150 miles to the northeast. The tornado dissipated north of Sturgis, MS, leaving behind widespread damage. It reached it's widest point and maximum intensity at 170mph as it moved through the south side of Yazoo City. Currently, it is the widest tornado on record in the state of Mississippi and holds the 4th spot in the longest tornado paths in Mississippi. The longest path is from 1953 when an F2 tornado began in Louisiana at 234 miles, with the Candlestick, MS F5 tornado trailing behind it at a path length of 202 miles.Articles: NWS Summary, MS Tornado Track records
8. Sulpher, OK: 1.76 miles
Before this tornado, a very violent EF-4 tornado approached Wynnewood, OK. There was also a rare anticyclonic tornado as this one was in progress west of Roff, Oklahoma. The anticyclonic tornado was rated EF-1 with peak winds estimated at 110MPH. From NWS Norman's storm summary page, there were 7 tornadoes in their CWA and 12 tornadoes in total.
Additional links/NWS event summary: US Tornadoes, NWS
Articles about TWIRL: Digital Trends, Success Magazine, National Science Foundation (NSF)
7. Bucklin, KS: 1.80 miles
On this day, 71 tornadoes were recorded across western Kansas. Out of these tornadoes, 18% (13 tornadoes) of them had a width greater than or equal to one mile. Thankfully, this mean-looking velocity signature on this tornado was located out mainly over farm land. No cities were impacted from the tornado directly.
During the same outbreak sequence 2 days later, an EF-5 tornado struck Parkersburg, IA, killing 9 and injuring 70, leaving behind millions of dollars in damage.
Mike Umscheid and Jeff Hutton (NWS Dodge City) made a presentation about this outbreak and presented it at the 12th High Plains Conference in Hays, KS back in 2008. This power point can be found here.
6. Lindale, TX: 1.83 miles
This was one of several tornadoes that occurred during the outbreak in Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, and Mississippi. In addition to the outbreak, there were reports of flooding in Lindale and western Louisiana. A CoCoRaHs station in Lindale recorded 6.17" of precipitation from 4/29 to 4/30.
Link to event summary: NWS
5. Moshannon State Forest, PA: 1.89 miles
Links to articles relating to this tornado: US Tornadoes, NWS, NWS 30 year anniversary, Weather History: BDMWeather
4. Pardeeville/Cambria, WI: 2.00 miles
With an estimated peak wind of 120mph and a width of 2 miles, a Wisconsin tornado makes it into the top 10 widest tornadoes. There were a total of 13 tornadoes that occurred this day, most of which were EF-0's. This event was a historical event for Wisconsin, as it overtook the number of tornadoes that occurred on August 9, 1979 with respect to the top 10 tornado days. This event was the 6th most active day in Wisconsin history, with the #1 day bringing 27 tornadoes in total (August 18, 2005).Link relating to this tornado: NWS
3. Greensburg, KS: 2.20 miles
2. Hallam, NE: 2.50 miles
NWS Links: Summary, Radar/Damage Photos, and Damage Survey Text
1. El-Reno, OK: 2.60 miles
Just like the Greensburg tornado at #10, almost every meteorologist and chaser has at least heard about this tornado and the impact on the meteorological community. The tornado spared the city of El-Reno and it's airport by remaining to the south and taking a "u" shape path (as seen with the graphic on the left). I believe it's fair to say that this tornado was a monster.
Articles: Weather History - BDMWeather, NWS Summary
And that's a wrap with this list! If there are any errors with any links, data, etc., or have photos/video that you took that you would like to add to this post, please don't hesitate to send me an email:
Data source: SPC's tornado database and various articles listed below each section (NWS, US Tornadoes, etc.)
Code used to analyze the database and sort by width:
import pandas as pd
data = pd.read_csv("/Users/Brandon/Desktop/projects/tornado_folder/1950-2016_actual_tornadoes.csv")
df = pd.DataFrame(data)
df = df[['date', 'mag', 'wid', 'st', 'inj', 'fat', 'len']]
df = df.nlargest(15, 'wid')