Delving into the Significance of the Tri-State Tornado
The Tri-State tornado hold several records for it’s impact and power. Learn more about that here…
The Tri-State tornado is one of the most well-known tornadoes, though happened almost 100 years ago as of this post. This is because the significance this tornado had on the lives of the affected and the towns that it hit. The tornado also had extraordinary power holding multiple records. In this post, learn about it’s power, it’s records, controversy, and more.
This post is all about the Tri-State tornado.
Unmatched Tri-State Tornado
What Caused the Tri-State Tornado?
The first section of this post will be about what caused the Tri-State tornado. The tornado happened a long time ago. Because of this, we don’t know the exact order of events. We are also unsure about what even happened for sure. This surface map shows what happened, but not in full detail. It shows a low-pressure cyclone that moved into Missouri. It eventually traveled to where the tornado starts. The cold front linked to it went into a warm sector (region filled with warm moist air). This made an explosive environment for supercells.
In this type of case, the jet stream is usually over the area. It provides great amounts of wind shear necessary for tornado formation. Learn more about that in the section on how do tornadoes form. Apparently the low followed the storm along it’s track, as it produced the tornado outbreak.
Tri-State Tornado Path
The path of the Tri-State tornado is about 219 miles, making it the longest tornado track ever recorded. There is some debate over whether or not it was one or multiple tornadoes. With how long ago it occurred, we are unsure about the number of tornadoes. It went through the states of MI, IL, & IN. This is why it is called that. It hit many cities, but there were a few that were hit worse that others. Some of the large towns/cities that were hit include…
- Annapolis
- Biehle
- Gorham
- Murphysboro
- West Frankfort
- Parrish
- Griffin
You can see some more information about the cities at the image above. The image above shows how much of these cities were destroyed.
Tri-State Tornado Wind Speeds
The wind speeds of the Tri-State tornado are unknown, because there are no recorded measurements of it. Also, it happened long before we started estimating the damage caused with the Fujita or Enhanced Fujita Scale. There have been some estimates made by meteorologists that place the tornado at 300 mph. This makes sense when you see the damage to some of the very strong structures in it’s path.
Tri-State Tornado Deaths
There are multiple records that the Tri-State tornado hold, unfortunately, including the death toll. The death toll from the tornado sits at 695, which is the deadliest recorded in the U.S. It doesn’t hold the deadliest tornado record for the whole world. You can learn about that at our other post here…
Images/Videos
The last section of this post will be about the tri-state tornado images and videos. Since this tornado travelled such a long track, there must’ve been some capture of this tornado, right? Well, this was 1925, you couldn’t take a photo as soon as you want to, it is a process. Another factor is that nobody saw this tornado coming, alongside there were no storm chasers at the time to prepare. So as of today, there are no existing photographs or videos of this tornado.