Greensburg first EF-5 Tornado Under New Scale

KWCH ^ | 5/6/2007

[aft_lizard]

Updated: 12:26pm

The National Weather Service says the tornado that hit Greensburg was an EF-5 on the Enhanced Fujita scale. A spokesman for the NWS office out of Dodge City estimates winds were near 205 miles-per-hour. The tornado was about a mile and a half wide.

This is the first EF-5 and the first F-5 under the previous scale since the tornado that hit Moore, OK in 1999. That storm system spawned the Haysville Tornado.

[Mad_Tom_Rackham]

[...winds were near 205 miles-per-hour. The tornado was about a mile and a half wide.]

I'll take California earthquakes over storms like this any day.

[WorkerbeeCitizen]

The finger of God.

[sweetiepiezer]

OMG, how horrifying for those people.
PRayers up for them.

[anymouse]

The finger of God.

Sounds like the backhand of God to me.

[WorkerbeeCitizen]

That would be a hurricane Andrew - that puppy took out half a state.

[RayChuang88]

This may be one of the rare times scientists can study what is known as a super tornado, one that is over 0.5 miles wide with winds over 200 mph.

Everyone fears the day a super tornado strikes a major metropolitan area, because a mile-plus wide tornado with winds over 200 mph could end up causing thousands of deaths in any urban area.

[ASOC]

Let me be the first to

Global Warming

Bushs fault

and more to the point

Prayers for the families of the dead and missing. Joy and hapiness for the found and safe.

[aft_lizard]

In 1999 the Moore Tornado was an F5 that hit Oklahoma City and its suburbs, later on the same system produced deadly tornados in the Wichita area. The scary thing is that today those two metro areas are going to be directly under the gun.

[El Gato]

Everyone fears the day a super tornado strikes a major metropolitan area, because a mile-plus wide tornado with winds over 200 mph could end up causing thousands of deaths in any urban area.

You don't consider the greater Oklahoma City area a "major metropolitan area"? The last F-5 mentioned as hitting Moore OK also hit parts of OK City. Moore is just on the southern border of OK City. It didn't kill thousands, but it did kill some, and did a lot of damage. I flew into OK City a few weeks after the tornado. The path was clearly visible from the air, even if you couldn't see the areas of major damager (I could not because we were pretty much directly over them). I could tell the path just by the downed and stripped trees. It caught the edge of Tinker AFB, and just grazed my company's OK City (actually Midwest City) office. Other offices in the complex were damaged, and our office suffered blow in windows and water damage. But that was just the tail end of the storm, although by looking at some hotels and other businesses along I-40 (which were damaged *after* the storm passed our office) you might not think so. Worst damage was miles away in Moore and nearby parts of OK City. It pretty much wiped out a shopping center along I-35 and destroyed homes and a school near there.

[Viking2002]

If God had anything to do with that monster, he'd have most assuredly dropped it into someplace like downtown San Francisco, not a small town in the middle of Kansas.

[Strategerist]

I'll take California earthquakes over storms like this any day.

You won't after Calfornia gets a real earthquake in a densely populated area. Just a matter of time.

[Strategerist]

That would be a hurricane Andrew - that puppy took out half a state.

Andrew had a very NARROW damage path - it was a small storm - through Florida south of Miami, hitting several dense subdivisions, but causing essentially no damage in Miami itself.

[ops33]

The same storm system destroyed an outlet mall located along I-44 at Stroud, OK. The company that owned the mall decided to not rebuild. The outlet mall was the largest employer in that county and the major source of tax revenue for the community. The same storm also destroyed a food shipping company adjacent to the outlet mall. That company was the second largest employer in the county. Also destroyed was the county's only hospital. So in one storm Stroud lost it two largest employers and the county’s only hospital. That’s a heck of a blow for a rural county. Only in the last few years has the hospital reopened but the jobs lost are gone forever.

[dirtboy]

I'll take California earthquakes over storms like this any day.

I'd take a tornado. Nowadays one often gets 15-20 minutes of warning for an approaching tornado. Earthquakes don't give warning.

[dirtboy]

That would be a hurricane Andrew - that puppy took out half a state

Andrew was actually a very compact hurricane and only affected a small portion of Florida. But the areas it did affect got hosed.

[dfwgator]

If Andrew had landed just 10 miles north of where it did, the cost of the damage would have been at least 10 times more. And Andrew was at the time the most costly storm in history.

[WorkerbeeCitizen]

I drove through there after the stome on my way to the keys. Other than the Miami suburbs, which I guess don't count as Miami, the entire town of Holmstead had been wiped off the map. Every tree as far as one could see was broken off about 3 feet from the ground and nothing was left undamaged for miles in all directions. Your statement sounds like a sound bite from the local news.

My intent is not to draw concern from the damage sustained in Greensburg. But merely to make a comparison between two types of devastating storms.

[Strategerist]

Your statement sounds like a sound bite from the local news.

No, my statement is fact, and a lot more accurate than the absurd claim that Andrew took out "half a state."

The path of extreme damage was narrow and the overwhelming majority of Florida was undamaged by Andrew.

[WorkerbeeCitizen]

OK - I’ll give ya half a state but you are going to have to define “narrow”.