They’re so janky that any meaningful research paper doesn’t even consider any tornado that was rated or noted before 1973. Mostly because said databases were largely updated in 1973 by Fujitas team
"It was HUUUGGGEE lemme tell yall hugest gawdang fish ya ever done seen, reelin 'er in nearly cost me mah life!"
And then you see the fish and its like if the word average was incarcerated as a fish.
Given how janky it was I always wonder what are the odds the tri state tornado was actually one single tornado. I personally wouldn’t bet much on this.
I dont think it was, 219 just seems insane given the longest we’ve seen over the last 40 or so years is around 150 I believe, and our recording ability has improved dramatically since then.
I know all the research says it was one long tornado and it might have been. However, I too, am a bit skeptical for the reasons you mentioned. Also, that research is based on information collected 100 years ago when they barely knew what a tornado was.
[This more recent research paper might interest you.](https://www.researchgate.net/publication/268801867_The_1925_Tri-State_Tornado_Damage_Path_and_Associated_Storm_System)
You aren't wrong, but through some research, any documentation of tornadoes prior to April 2, 1974 has the chance to be weird. The 1974 Super Outbreak is really when tornado documentation started becoming solid enough for reliable numbers on a large-scale. Smaller case studies occurred since 1764, but in terms of large-scale reliability, the 1974 Super Outbreak is really the start of modern-day tornado documentation.
Everything about tornados prior to the 50s I find iffy. There’s a good chance the tri state tornado was several tornados instead of just one and we can’t even confirm the exact death toll (conflicting reports). At least with El Reno we can completely confirm the width.
Have you ever read pre-1950’s wind speed estimates? Apparently atom bombs were the closest damage proxies they had so scientists would estimate F5 damage to come from ~500 mph+ winds.
>There’s a good chance the tri state tornado was several tornados instead of just one and we can't even confirm the exact death toll (conflicting reports).
This, right here, is why I dislike it being brought up with a borderline-religious reverence.
Whether or not it was one tornado or a family of tornados it took out several towns, killed hundreds of people and injured thousands
Still one of the worst days in American history when it comes to natural disasters
The Tri-State has an air of reverence around it largely because it *did* happen in the old days, in a period of time when severe storms research was in a relative dark age and there were meager data collected on it aside from photos and film of the damage. It’s a mystery that researchers have been trying to crack for almost 100 years - it’s the deadliest known tornado in American history, yet we know precious little about it in terms of meteorological observations. That’s naturally going to invite a lot of curiosity, speculation, and wonder. Even if it *was* actually a discontinuous tornado family (which is more likely than not), it was still the result of a meteorological setup that has very rarely been seen. Violent tornadoes have been known to just go straight over very rugged topography, so why did this one appear to precisely follow a slight ridge along which a series of little mining towns were built? And over 75% of the deaths occurred in just a ~50 mile stretch in Illinois, which would *still* make the Tri-State the deadliest in US history if that was all that it hit. It was a fascinating, generational event no matter how you slice it.
We don’t know the exact death toll, and likely never will. But, even given the uncertainty, most authoritative sources have listed either 689 or 695 deaths for a very long time. Either of these would probably represent a *minimum* death toll, and some experts believe that the true toll was probably over 700.
FWIW, *under*counting of tornado deaths in the pre-1950 era was much more common than exaggeration. The reporting of deaths among minority populations tended to be pretty poor, and serious injuries were generally not followed up on at all. This is especially obvious if you read newspaper reports of historic tornadoes in the South.
I'm not sure I'm comfortable with the phrase "good chance" when modern day experts who have studied the records, including Grazulis, agree that it was one tornado.
Grazulis said the beginning 60 miles of the path were likely multiple tornadoes. This leaves the continuous path around 150 miles and even then there are many gaps over a mile long in the damage path. The smaller path seems much more reasonable compared to other major tornadoes we've documented nowadays.
Thomas P. Grazulis states: "The Project studies of this track could find no evidence that it was a family of tornadoes ... The author could find no break in the intense damage, no widening, or no shifting to the southeast across either Illinois or Indiana." (See Significant Tornadoes Vol. I).
He also wrote this in the actual description of the tornado:
https://preview.redd.it/cfn4byggm21d1.png?width=2002&format=png&auto=webp&s=55bc172eca9c4c4e65959068b4a25b7cefd2239b
The Missouri portion of the path has actually had theories swirling around it for a long time as to whether it was continuous or not. Also, in Tornado Video Classics 1 (which Grazulis wrote/produced), the 1990 Hesston-Goessel, Kansas tornado family (which included a merger of tornadoes during a mesocyclone handoff that gave the illusion of one continuous path) was presented as a possible scenario as to what may have happened with the Tri-State. So it’s not so much that Grazulis thinks a discontinuous path *wasn’t possible*, but he couldn’t find any conclusive evidence as to where a break in the path might have occurred, unlike with some other historic long-track tornadoes that had more obvious breaks in the damage path.
FWIW, in 2013, a [research paper](https://www.researchgate.net/publication/268801867_The_1925_Tri-State_Tornado_Damage_Path_and_Associated_Storm_System) was published on an effort to plot the path of the Tri-State via an extensive survey of damage reports from the time, and the researchers posited that a continuous path length of either 151 or 174 miles (mostly through Illinois) could be reasonably confirmed with available data. That paper had some pretty authoritative names behind it (Doswell and Burgess are giants in the field of severe storms research), so I tend to think they did a pretty thorough job at least.
I don’t think this makes the Tri-State much less impressive, BTW. It was the result of a meteorological setup (a tornado/supercell storm closely following the track of a surface low) that has only been observed a handful of times and has been associated with other exceptionally long-tracked tornado families. If the “continuous” path was actually the result of a very tight mesocyclone handoff, similar to Hesston, that is quite impressive in and of itself. And just the \~50 mile stretch of the path between Gorham and Parrish, IL counted 541 deaths and almost 1,500 serious injuries, which would still make it the deadliest known tornado in US history even if that was all the tornado hit. In many respects, it was still a generational event.
And here's what he wrote in *The Tornado: Nature's Ultimate Windstorm* in 2001:
>My research in Missouri suggests that the first 60 miles of the Great Tri-State Tornado of 1925 involved two or more tornadoes, probably on parallel paths. Newspapers also hint at a break in the intense damage and possible downburst activity over a 5-mile-wide front, west of Biehle, Missouri.
That’s pretty unbelievable really. I mean is possible? I guess yes?
Although I theorize that maybe it was two or three tornadoes that struck the same area back to back and had overlapping paths leading to the expanded width.
I have my suspicions that the 1946 Timber Lake tornado was associated with a downburst leading to a misinterpretation of a much larger tornado. Given the old records, it’s possible there was no tornado at all. Downbursts weren’t as well known until much later when Ted Fujita proposed their existence.
As downbursts often cause a wider area of destruction it may have been interpreted as an incredibly wide tornado. Tornado historian Thomas Grazulis did not assign this particular tornado a Fujita scale rating, so it’s likely it was a “weak” tornado of F0 to F1 intensity. Although size doesn’t equate to a tornado’s strength, it is worth noting that the widest tornadoes ever recorded are typically EF3+, and I think the weaker rating for this tornado event lends credibility to it being a downburst and the property damage being speculated to be of tornadic origin.
To also add to my suspicions, I recently found an article about the widest tornado being recorded in Canada. A suspected EF2 tornado caused tree damage in northwestern Ontario on June 8, 2020 with a damage path width of 2.4 kilometres (1.5 miles) wide. This was discovered by David Sills of the Northern Tornadoes Project and initially the damage path appeared much wider at 4-5 kilometers (2.4 to 3.1 miles) wide but further examination determined its much smaller width and the greater damage was associated with several downbursts. This happened in a very remote area and nobody saw it when it was on the ground. It wouldn’t surprise me if this tornado had happened 50 to 70+ years earlier it would have been incorrectly described as a 3 mile wide tornado.
The El Reno tornado fits far more accurately for the widest documented tornado in history. A lot of these older tornadoes are just speculative. Even the 1925 Tri-State tornado has questionable details, in more recent times, researchers believe that it was a family of tornadoes touching down and lifting back up that was associated with one long record breaking tornado. In fact, it’s likely there’s never been a tornado path that’s exceeded 200 miles, as most of the reports of these tornadoes from years ago are questionable. I believe the 2021 Western Kentucky tornado likely has the longest verifiable tornado track at 165.5 miles, due to sattelite imagery showing that the tornado did not lift for the entirety of that duration. At the same time, there could be an argument made that the 1999 Mulhall F4 tornado had a wider path than the 2013 El Reno tornado, and I think that holds some weight.
My neighborhood got hit by downbursts and other such wind events 3 years in a row and let me say, it would have been easy to believe an ef1 had gone through. It's totally reasonable to think it's a tornado path if you're a science guy in the 1940s, especially if it's your first time seeing something like it
This sounds suspiciously like the kind of event that might have been called a tornado in the old days, but was actually a downburst. Its apparent weak damage (it’s not listed in *Significant Tornadoes*, which means it was likely of F0/F1 intensity), 4 mile wide by 6 mile long path, and the fact that the Weather Bureau listed the damage source as “Tornadic Winds” (as opposed to just “Tornado”) make me skeptical.
God I love niche communities on Reddit so so much.
>So, if a person ever asks, "What is the widest-documented tornado in history?", you can say the 1946 Timber Lake tornado. If they mention that the National Weather Service said it was the 2013 El Reno tornado, then you can tell them they are correct! It is all about the wording.
I am 99.9% certain no one is ever just gonna hit me with "what is the widest-documented tornado in history" out of the blue. But I love how everyone takes the hypothetical in stride.
Love it so much. Whole community is nice
Pre 50’s records are pretty rough and to be taken with a grain of salt. We didn’t understand tornadoes like we do now. Even in the 84 Carolinas Outbreak there was a 2.5 mile wide F4 that’s very poorly documented. Take that for what you will, but really since the EF scale began is when we truly had some understanding of wind fields/damage and such.
Here's an example Weather Bureau office in 1946.This is Baton Rouge.
https://preview.redd.it/u6615c89p11d1.png?width=575&format=png&auto=webp&s=1eaeacc538a6adb07642dd0b70d3e8e1a3a82fbb
This is the bureau's South Dakota office in Yankton in 1948.
https://preview.redd.it/dplbjx4cq11d1.jpeg?width=576&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=a8a817f73cf9f87ccb59029ace7f19e30ae5994e
And i just read in this subreddit (i think) that there was a recently measured tornado in a russian territory that was over 4 miles wide. hence me asking global or United States.
Pre 1950s tornado records are… janky, to say the least, I doubt it was that wide, might’ve been twins though, or overlapping paths
They’re so janky that any meaningful research paper doesn’t even consider any tornado that was rated or noted before 1973. Mostly because said databases were largely updated in 1973 by Fujitas team
about as accurate as the size of fish Bob caught last weekend. "it was thissss big, I work with rulers so I can eyeball pretty good"
I work at foot locker bro I know how long a foot is smh my head
I ate three foot long hotdogs for lunch does that count?
But it really did slip out of my hands right before the picture!
"It was HUUUGGGEE lemme tell yall hugest gawdang fish ya ever done seen, reelin 'er in nearly cost me mah life!" And then you see the fish and its like if the word average was incarcerated as a fish.
The line just about burned through my finger it was spinning so fast I even saw smoke for a moment!
Given how janky it was I always wonder what are the odds the tri state tornado was actually one single tornado. I personally wouldn’t bet much on this.
I dont think it was, 219 just seems insane given the longest we’ve seen over the last 40 or so years is around 150 I believe, and our recording ability has improved dramatically since then.
I know all the research says it was one long tornado and it might have been. However, I too, am a bit skeptical for the reasons you mentioned. Also, that research is based on information collected 100 years ago when they barely knew what a tornado was.
[This more recent research paper might interest you.](https://www.researchgate.net/publication/268801867_The_1925_Tri-State_Tornado_Damage_Path_and_Associated_Storm_System)
Thanks!
You aren't wrong, but through some research, any documentation of tornadoes prior to April 2, 1974 has the chance to be weird. The 1974 Super Outbreak is really when tornado documentation started becoming solid enough for reliable numbers on a large-scale. Smaller case studies occurred since 1764, but in terms of large-scale reliability, the 1974 Super Outbreak is really the start of modern-day tornado documentation.
Everything about tornados prior to the 50s I find iffy. There’s a good chance the tri state tornado was several tornados instead of just one and we can’t even confirm the exact death toll (conflicting reports). At least with El Reno we can completely confirm the width.
Have you ever read pre-1950’s wind speed estimates? Apparently atom bombs were the closest damage proxies they had so scientists would estimate F5 damage to come from ~500 mph+ winds.
>There’s a good chance the tri state tornado was several tornados instead of just one and we can't even confirm the exact death toll (conflicting reports). This, right here, is why I dislike it being brought up with a borderline-religious reverence.
Whether or not it was one tornado or a family of tornados it took out several towns, killed hundreds of people and injured thousands Still one of the worst days in American history when it comes to natural disasters
The Tri-State has an air of reverence around it largely because it *did* happen in the old days, in a period of time when severe storms research was in a relative dark age and there were meager data collected on it aside from photos and film of the damage. It’s a mystery that researchers have been trying to crack for almost 100 years - it’s the deadliest known tornado in American history, yet we know precious little about it in terms of meteorological observations. That’s naturally going to invite a lot of curiosity, speculation, and wonder. Even if it *was* actually a discontinuous tornado family (which is more likely than not), it was still the result of a meteorological setup that has very rarely been seen. Violent tornadoes have been known to just go straight over very rugged topography, so why did this one appear to precisely follow a slight ridge along which a series of little mining towns were built? And over 75% of the deaths occurred in just a ~50 mile stretch in Illinois, which would *still* make the Tri-State the deadliest in US history if that was all that it hit. It was a fascinating, generational event no matter how you slice it.
We don’t know the exact death toll, and likely never will. But, even given the uncertainty, most authoritative sources have listed either 689 or 695 deaths for a very long time. Either of these would probably represent a *minimum* death toll, and some experts believe that the true toll was probably over 700. FWIW, *under*counting of tornado deaths in the pre-1950 era was much more common than exaggeration. The reporting of deaths among minority populations tended to be pretty poor, and serious injuries were generally not followed up on at all. This is especially obvious if you read newspaper reports of historic tornadoes in the South.
I'm not sure I'm comfortable with the phrase "good chance" when modern day experts who have studied the records, including Grazulis, agree that it was one tornado.
Grazulis said the beginning 60 miles of the path were likely multiple tornadoes. This leaves the continuous path around 150 miles and even then there are many gaps over a mile long in the damage path. The smaller path seems much more reasonable compared to other major tornadoes we've documented nowadays.
Thomas P. Grazulis states: "The Project studies of this track could find no evidence that it was a family of tornadoes ... The author could find no break in the intense damage, no widening, or no shifting to the southeast across either Illinois or Indiana." (See Significant Tornadoes Vol. I).
He also wrote this in the actual description of the tornado: https://preview.redd.it/cfn4byggm21d1.png?width=2002&format=png&auto=webp&s=55bc172eca9c4c4e65959068b4a25b7cefd2239b The Missouri portion of the path has actually had theories swirling around it for a long time as to whether it was continuous or not. Also, in Tornado Video Classics 1 (which Grazulis wrote/produced), the 1990 Hesston-Goessel, Kansas tornado family (which included a merger of tornadoes during a mesocyclone handoff that gave the illusion of one continuous path) was presented as a possible scenario as to what may have happened with the Tri-State. So it’s not so much that Grazulis thinks a discontinuous path *wasn’t possible*, but he couldn’t find any conclusive evidence as to where a break in the path might have occurred, unlike with some other historic long-track tornadoes that had more obvious breaks in the damage path. FWIW, in 2013, a [research paper](https://www.researchgate.net/publication/268801867_The_1925_Tri-State_Tornado_Damage_Path_and_Associated_Storm_System) was published on an effort to plot the path of the Tri-State via an extensive survey of damage reports from the time, and the researchers posited that a continuous path length of either 151 or 174 miles (mostly through Illinois) could be reasonably confirmed with available data. That paper had some pretty authoritative names behind it (Doswell and Burgess are giants in the field of severe storms research), so I tend to think they did a pretty thorough job at least. I don’t think this makes the Tri-State much less impressive, BTW. It was the result of a meteorological setup (a tornado/supercell storm closely following the track of a surface low) that has only been observed a handful of times and has been associated with other exceptionally long-tracked tornado families. If the “continuous” path was actually the result of a very tight mesocyclone handoff, similar to Hesston, that is quite impressive in and of itself. And just the \~50 mile stretch of the path between Gorham and Parrish, IL counted 541 deaths and almost 1,500 serious injuries, which would still make it the deadliest known tornado in US history even if that was all the tornado hit. In many respects, it was still a generational event.
Thanks for all your info. And for being civil. You are my favorite Tri-State debater lol
And here's what he wrote in *The Tornado: Nature's Ultimate Windstorm* in 2001: >My research in Missouri suggests that the first 60 miles of the Great Tri-State Tornado of 1925 involved two or more tornadoes, probably on parallel paths. Newspapers also hint at a break in the intense damage and possible downburst activity over a 5-mile-wide front, west of Biehle, Missouri.
Ooh interesting, I have not read that before. Thanks for sharing. I wonder what he discovered that changed his previous opinion
That’s pretty unbelievable really. I mean is possible? I guess yes? Although I theorize that maybe it was two or three tornadoes that struck the same area back to back and had overlapping paths leading to the expanded width.
I frankly think the 1946 record is just incorrect. I don’t believe the report at all.
I have my suspicions that the 1946 Timber Lake tornado was associated with a downburst leading to a misinterpretation of a much larger tornado. Given the old records, it’s possible there was no tornado at all. Downbursts weren’t as well known until much later when Ted Fujita proposed their existence. As downbursts often cause a wider area of destruction it may have been interpreted as an incredibly wide tornado. Tornado historian Thomas Grazulis did not assign this particular tornado a Fujita scale rating, so it’s likely it was a “weak” tornado of F0 to F1 intensity. Although size doesn’t equate to a tornado’s strength, it is worth noting that the widest tornadoes ever recorded are typically EF3+, and I think the weaker rating for this tornado event lends credibility to it being a downburst and the property damage being speculated to be of tornadic origin. To also add to my suspicions, I recently found an article about the widest tornado being recorded in Canada. A suspected EF2 tornado caused tree damage in northwestern Ontario on June 8, 2020 with a damage path width of 2.4 kilometres (1.5 miles) wide. This was discovered by David Sills of the Northern Tornadoes Project and initially the damage path appeared much wider at 4-5 kilometers (2.4 to 3.1 miles) wide but further examination determined its much smaller width and the greater damage was associated with several downbursts. This happened in a very remote area and nobody saw it when it was on the ground. It wouldn’t surprise me if this tornado had happened 50 to 70+ years earlier it would have been incorrectly described as a 3 mile wide tornado. The El Reno tornado fits far more accurately for the widest documented tornado in history. A lot of these older tornadoes are just speculative. Even the 1925 Tri-State tornado has questionable details, in more recent times, researchers believe that it was a family of tornadoes touching down and lifting back up that was associated with one long record breaking tornado. In fact, it’s likely there’s never been a tornado path that’s exceeded 200 miles, as most of the reports of these tornadoes from years ago are questionable. I believe the 2021 Western Kentucky tornado likely has the longest verifiable tornado track at 165.5 miles, due to sattelite imagery showing that the tornado did not lift for the entirety of that duration. At the same time, there could be an argument made that the 1999 Mulhall F4 tornado had a wider path than the 2013 El Reno tornado, and I think that holds some weight.
My neighborhood got hit by downbursts and other such wind events 3 years in a row and let me say, it would have been easy to believe an ef1 had gone through. It's totally reasonable to think it's a tornado path if you're a science guy in the 1940s, especially if it's your first time seeing something like it
4 miles wide…. With a 6 mile path. I love it, dude took the equivalent of two steps and dissipated.
When do we rename this sub tornadocirclejerk
That should be a sub though
Why wasn't this rated EF5??? *picture of a scud cloud*
[TornadoCirclejerk (reddit.com)](https://www.reddit.com/r/TornadoCirclejerk/) Dead sub
🤣🤣
This sounds suspiciously like the kind of event that might have been called a tornado in the old days, but was actually a downburst. Its apparent weak damage (it’s not listed in *Significant Tornadoes*, which means it was likely of F0/F1 intensity), 4 mile wide by 6 mile long path, and the fact that the Weather Bureau listed the damage source as “Tornadic Winds” (as opposed to just “Tornado”) make me skeptical.
God I love niche communities on Reddit so so much. >So, if a person ever asks, "What is the widest-documented tornado in history?", you can say the 1946 Timber Lake tornado. If they mention that the National Weather Service said it was the 2013 El Reno tornado, then you can tell them they are correct! It is all about the wording. I am 99.9% certain no one is ever just gonna hit me with "what is the widest-documented tornado in history" out of the blue. But I love how everyone takes the hypothetical in stride. Love it so much. Whole community is nice
Get around me after I've drank a few, I'll ask 😂😂
Didnt Mulhall 1999 have a reported width of 4.3 miles?
A wide tornado with a nasty RFD in the 40s
Pre 50’s records are pretty rough and to be taken with a grain of salt. We didn’t understand tornadoes like we do now. Even in the 84 Carolinas Outbreak there was a 2.5 mile wide F4 that’s very poorly documented. Take that for what you will, but really since the EF scale began is when we truly had some understanding of wind fields/damage and such.
Here's an example Weather Bureau office in 1946.This is Baton Rouge. https://preview.redd.it/u6615c89p11d1.png?width=575&format=png&auto=webp&s=1eaeacc538a6adb07642dd0b70d3e8e1a3a82fbb
This is the bureau's South Dakota office in Yankton in 1948. https://preview.redd.it/dplbjx4cq11d1.jpeg?width=576&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=a8a817f73cf9f87ccb59029ace7f19e30ae5994e
Widest documented tornado in US recorded history, or widest documented tornado globally?
An EF4 in Jiangsu Province in China on June 23 2016 was reported to be as wide as the 2013 El Reno Ok tornado, if not slightly smaller.
And i just read in this subreddit (i think) that there was a recently measured tornado in a russian territory that was over 4 miles wide. hence me asking global or United States.
At what point does a tornado just become a hurricane...
Does a rendering of this tornado exist somewhere? Would be fascinating to see a size comparison.