Which tornado in recorded history was most likely the one with the highest wind speeds and did the most damage

Question

what historical tornado was most likely to have done the worst damage and was the most powerful? I'm talking about storms that occured before the technology and the knowledge could rate them at the time they happened.

Answer 1

before we could rate them would be 1971 when Dr Fujita made up the F-Scale.

Tri-state tornado because of its F5 strength and its abnormal length of its damage path.

it occured march 18 1925, formed in missouri, moved completely across illinois and finally disapated in indiana

there is however a thing called tornado familes which is now thought to be the reason why the tri state tornado was so long, one tornado dies and another forms very near it. this occured with this Greensburg F5 this past may.

Answer 2

I concur with Kevin B: the Tri-State Tornado of 1925. It killed more people than any other tornado in U.S. history; it had the longest continuous damage path; and due to the damage it caused, it was given a rating of F5 on the Fujita Scale. Obviously, the scale didn't exist when the tornado occurred and technology to measure its wind speed didn't exist in 1925; the rating was based on reports of the damage it caused.

The tornado was unusual in that according to eyewitness reports it generally didn't look like a funnel, but like a boiling mass of clouds (almost like a dust storm). Also, most of the time it was moving at 60+ mph. This meant that normally storm-wise people such as farmers were caught completely unawares by the tornado, which no doubt contributed to the fatality count.

Wikipedia has a really good write-up on it (link below). Another good write-up is at the Tornado Project online (www.tornadoproject.com). Click on the "Top Tens" link on the front page and look for links to the Tri-State Tornado; it won't take long to find.

You could make a case that more recent tornadoes such as the Xenia tornado (1974), the Wichita-Andover tornado (1991), and the OKC tornado (1999) were more powerful and/or caused more damage. But the Tri-State Tornado definitely stands as the most powerful and the most damaging prior to the advent of modern weather technology, and the most lethal, EVER. Hope that's what you're looking for!

Answer 3

Without a doubt it would have to be the Tri State Tornado of 1925 that killed 650 people and was on the ground for hours! The Xenia, Ohio tornado is also up there on the list, but the most powerful tornado in present technology would have to be the F-5 that hit Oklahoma City and Moore Oklahoma in 1999 with wind speeds clocked at 318 mph which will completely scrape houses off their foundations and even rip up pavement off the road! Most recently the F-5 monster that wiped Greensburg, Kansas off the map was 1.7 miles wide and destroyed 95% of the town with wind speeds exceeding 250 mph!

Answer 4

http://www.spc.noaa.gov/faq/tornado/#History

the biggest known tornado? The Hallam, Nebraska F4 tornado of 22 May 2004 is the newest record-holder for peak width, at nearly two and a half miles, as surveyed by Brian Smith of NWS Omaha. This is probably close to the maximum size for tornadoes; but it is possible that larger, unrecorded ones have occurred. http://www.spc.noaa.gov/faq/tornado/hallamap.jpg

top 20 deadliest U.S. tornado days?
http://www.spc.noaa.gov/faq/tornado/fatalday.htm

What were the deadliest U.S. tornadoes? The "Tri-state" tornado of 18 March 1925 killed 695 people as it raced along at 60-73 mph in a 219 mile long track across parts of Missouri, Illinois and Indiana, producing F5 damage. The death toll is an estimate based on the work of Grazulis (1993); older references have different counts. This event also holds the known record for most tornado fatalities in a single city or town: at least 234 at Murphysboro IL. The 25 deadliest tornadoes on record
http://www.spc.noaa.gov/faq/tornado/killers.html

What was the strongest tornado? What is the highest wind speed in a tornado? Nobody knows. Tornado wind speeds have only been directly recorded in the weaker ones, because strong and violent tornadoes destroy weather instruments. Mobile Doppler radars such as the OU Doppler on Wheels have remotely sensed tornado wind speeds above ground level as high as about 302 mph (on 3 May 1999 near Bridge Creek OK) -- the highest winds ever found near earth's surface by any means. [That tornado caused F5 damage.] But ground-level wind speeds in the most violent tornadoes have never been directly measured.

Answer 5

This is hard to gage because the definition of the "worst damage" in not exact. I believe there was a tornado in St Louis around the turn of the 20th Century that killed over 200 people and did tremendous damage.

Answer 6

Prior to the Oklahoma City tornado, the April 3, 1974 Xenia, Ohio tornado was the worst.

Answer 7

the 1974 xenia,ohio tornado is likely to have the highest winds recorded at 320mph and the guage broke, so who knows how high the winds would have been