The Daily Parker

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Largest. Tornado. Ever.

The twister—as much as a 4200-meter-wide monster can twist—that hit Oklahoma last week broke all kinds of records:

In the rare category of EF5 tornadoes, the one on Friday in the El Reno area was “super rare,” a National Weather Service meteorologist said Tuesday.

The Weather Service updated its estimate Tuesday of the tornado that struck El Reno Friday, determining it was an EF5, the strongest classification for a twister. It was a record 4.2 km wide and tracked across 26 km.

During Friday's storm, the University of Oklahoma RaXPol — a rapid-scan, polarimetric mobile Doppler radar — measured winds greater than 475 km/h at several times and locations within 150 m of the ground along the south side of subvortices on the south side of the tornado.

Fortunately (there's an understatement), the tornado struck a rural area some distance from Oklahoma City, and no one got seriously hurt

But...wow. That's one hell of a storm.

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