North Dakota tornado upgraded to EF5 strength, first such US storm since 2013

The tornado that ripped through North Dakota on June 20 this year, hitting Enderlin, has now been reclassified by the National Weather Service as an EF5, the most severe category, The Hill reports. This classification is based on the winds during the natural calamity being recorded to be over 200 mph.

North Dakota’s June tornado upgraded to EF5 strength, first such US storm since 2013(Representative image/Unsplash)

North Dakota tornado reclassified as an EF5

This means that it was the first tornado of this class to hit the United States in 12 years. Apart from the damage caused to inanimate objects, the tornado also killed three people.

The reports state that the tornado was on the ground for around 12 miles and was 1.05 miles wide at its most expansive. The winds that the tornado carried had speeds exceeding 210 mph. However, that is still far from the record for the fastest winds recorded in such a natural calamity. That distinction lies with the 1999 Bridge-Creek Moore tornado in Oklahoma, where winds reached speeds of 321 mph.

“In the last, kind of 12 years, there have been several strong tornadoes that have come close, but there have not been known damage indicators at that time to support the EF5 rating,” Melinda Beerends of the National Weather Service was quoted as saying by The Hill.

The twister derailed several trains and even managed to throw an empty tank car to a distance of 500 feet. The severity of the winds can be understood by the fact that such a vehicle weighs anywhere between 50,000 and 90,000 pounds.

Methods of judging tornadoes

According to king5.com, meteorologists use the Enhanced Fujita Scale to measure the strength of this weather phenomenon. The main factor is the wind speeds that the twisters generate. The scale goes up from EF0 – where winds are below 85 mph – up to EF5.

Also read: North Dakota tornado: Death toll rises to 3 as homes damaged in Enderlin

Before this year’s tornado in North Dakota, the previous EF5 twister occurred in 2013. On that occasion, it was Moore in Oklahoma that bore the brunt of the damage, and 25 people lost their lives.

The Enhanced Fujita Scale was adopted in 2007 to measure the intensity of tornadoes. Since then, there have been 10 twisters of EF5 category in the United States, the report in The Hill said.

FAQs:

What is a tornado?

The National Weather Service classifies a tornado as “a violently rotating column of air touching the ground, usually attached to the base of a thunderstorm.”