North Dakota EF-5 tornado: Chilling videos from Enderlin show aftermath, derailed train

A tornado in June 2025 in North Dakota’s Enderlin was upgraded to the EF-5 status on Monday by the National Weather Service. The tornado produced winds of more than 210 mph, which the NWS confirmed had not happened in at least a decade. It killed three people and left severe destruction in its wake.

Representational image.(Unsplash)

According to the Enhanced Fujita Scale, the standard for measuring tornado strength, the EF-5 category is given to tornadoes with a speed of 201 mph or more. The NWS in Forks, North Dakota, confirmed that the Enderlin tornado went well over with 210 mph – making it one of the worst in the US’s recent history. Initially, the tornado’s speed was measured at 160 mph, and it was put in the EF-3 category.

The last time a tornado crossed that speed was on May 20, 2013, in Moore, Oklahoma.

With the recent upgradation to the EF-5 category, old videos of the damage caused by the tornado resurfaced. The footages that had emerged then were scary, with one showing a train’s coach derailed and thrown around 500 feet away from the track. Other videos captured uprooted trees, destroyed homes, and electric wires and public infrastructure.

Here’s a drone video of the train shortly after the EF-5 tornado had passed through the area:

What Led To The Upgradation

The upgradation was a result of the NWS meteorologists gathering and studying data of the tornado’s path over the four months since it passed through several areas in North Dakota. Based on the analysis, the NWS published an advisory on October 6, Monday, where it said that

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“The estimated maximum wind speed of the Enderlin tornado is greater than 210 mph and occurred during the time of the train derailment south of Enderlin,” the advisory noted. The analysis involved forensic damage wind speed estimates for tipping several fully-loaded grain hopper cars and lofting of tanker cars, including one empty tanker car that was tossed about 475.7 feet (145 m).”

Melinda Beerends, the chief meteorologist at the NWS office in Grand Forks told local CBS affiliate WCNC: “In the last kind of 12 years, there’s been several strong tornadoes that have come close, but there haven’t been known damage indicators at that time to support the EF5 rating. It’s hard sometimes to get tornadoes to hit something.”