OKLAHOMA CITY — The deadly tornado that struck near Oklahoma City late last week had a record-breaking width of 2.6 miles — which is wider than Manhattan at its widest point — and was the second top-of-the-scale EF5 twister to hit the area in less than two weeks, the National Weather Service reported Tuesday.
The weather service determined that the Friday storm, which along with subsequent flooding killed 19 people, packed winds reaching 295 mph.
The update from an EF3 means the Oklahoma City area has seen two of the extremely rare EF5 tornadoes in only 11 days. The other hit Moore, a city about 25 miles away from El Reno, on May 20, killing 24 people and causing widespread damage. In 1999, Moore was hit by another EF5 with the strongest winds ever measured on earth: 302 mph.
But Friday’s tornado avoided the highly populated areas around Oklahoma City, and forecasters said that likely saved lives. When the winds were at their most powerful, no structures were nearby, said Rick Smith, chief warning coordination meteorologist for the weather service’s office in Norman. “We’re looking at extremes … This is the super rare category because we don’t deal with things like this often.”
There have been only eight F5/EF-5 tornadoes in Oklahoma since 1950.
