Tornadoes are vertical wind tunnels that spin with frightening speed between Earth and cloud, destroying structures and flinging debris and objects along the way.
On 18 March 1925, a tornado ripped through Missouri, Illinois and Indiana in the United States, marking the most extreme of its kind in recorded history. The infamous Tri-State Tornado lasted 3.5 hours and reached speeds of up to 117 km/h, as it travelled across a full 352km of land. These statistics make it the longest-lasting, fastest moving and furthest spanned tornado ever recorded. It was also the deadliest in US history, claiming the lives of 695 people.
The deadliest tornado in the world was the Daulatpur–Saturia tornado in Bangladesh, which killed more than 1300 people on 26 April 1989.
The United States also holds the record for the widest tornado – the El Reno, Oklahoma tornado measured 4.2km across at its peak. This video explains it all.
Originally published by Cosmos as How big can tornadoes get?
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