On May 3, 1999, a bunch of tornadoes hit Oklahoma. The worst was in the Oklahoma City area, around Moore, Oklahoma. This was the strongest tornado ever measured. It's probably not the strongest tornado in history, but it's way up there. The wind, probably 200' above ground, was measured at 318 mph. The tornado was on the ground for 14 miles, and was about a mile wide at its widest point. 44 people died and about 500 were injured from this tornado.

Some people from Oklahoma University measured the wind speed using Doppler on Wheels.

Three days later, on May 6, my middle toddler Steven and I flew over the area and took some pictures. It's amazing the way that entire areas of houses were flattened. Not just a few houses, but hundreds. About 1800 houses were destroyed in the Oklahoma City area that night, in addition to lots of other buildings.

Here's a satellite image of that storm developing:

        satellite.jpg

Here's a picture of the storm when it got near Pryor. It wasn't as strong there, but it didn't look very nice:



One mile wide is amazing for a tornado, but on June 9, 1971 in the Texas panhandle there was a tornado that reached a width of 2 miles. I think that's the current record.

These photos were taken May 6, 1999, three days after the tornado.