Tornado Devastates Oklahoma City Suburb
May 21, 2013
A tornado tore through Moore, Oklahoma, yesterday, a suburb of Oklahoma City, leaving 24 people dead, including 10 children. The death count had been revised downward from the 51 dead initially reported. The medical examiners office believes some victims were counted twice in the early aftermath of the disaster.
Tornados are created when certain conditions are met: adequate moisture in the air; a layer of warm, moist air near the ground and a layer of cool air above; andwinds at higher elevations that differ from those at lower levels in speed, direction, or both. (© Gene & Karen Rhoden, Peter Arnold Images/photolibrary)
The U.S. National Weather Service estimated that the tornado was around ½-mile (0.8-kilometer) wide. The storm touched down at 2:56 pm and was on the ground for about 40 minutes. A preliminary report from the weather service estimated that the storm was an EF-4, indicating wind speeds of 166 to 200 miles (267 to 322 kilometers) per hour. (The EF stands for Enhanced Fujita Scale, named by meteorologist and storm researcher Tetsuya Theodore Fujita.)
The tornado in Moore picked up and carried away cars. Whole neighborhoods were leveled. Two elementary schools, directly in the tornado’s path, were flattened. Rescuers today are in a race to search through the rubble and find the dozens of children still missing.
This map of the United States shows the number of tornadoes that occur yearly in each 10,000 square miles (25,900 square kilometers) of area. (World Book map)
Oklahoma is one of the states in “Tornado Alley,” a belt that stretches across the Midwestern and Southern states that has a very high incidence of tornadoes. Moore was the site of one of the most destructive tornadoes in U.S. history. On May 3, 1999, a tornado ripped through the area, killing 42 people. That tornado was an EF-5, with the highest recorded wind speeds in history, at 302 miles (486 kilometers) per hour.
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