1999 Oklahoma tornado outbreak

The Oklahoma Tornado Outbreak from 3 to May 6, 1999 was one of the worst natural disasters in the United States.

On May 3, swept within eleven hours more than 70 tornadoes across Texas, Oklahoma and Kansas time. The small town of Bridge Creek, about 40 km southwest of Oklahoma City located, was the worst hit. In just 15 minutes a tornado of strength F5 ( cf. Fujita Tornado Scale ) destroyed the place. Many people sought refuge in the school gymnasium, one of the few remaining buildings. Many people suffered fatal injuries from flying debris and objects. The tornado, which lasted two hours and was 1.6 km wide, is 511 km / h tornado with the highest wind speed ever recorded. With 496 ± 33 km / h measured from a mobile Doppler radar at 18:54 clock at Bridge Creek, she was the top of the class F5 the Fujita scale; the upper error limit even reaches into the F6 area.

A total of 48 people were killed on that day, 36 of them killed the Bridge Creek tornado. About 10,500 residential buildings and businesses were destroyed. The material damage amounted to about 1.2 billion U.S. dollars, the greatest damage that ever single tornadoes wreaked in the history of the United States.

This strong storm front with eventually devastating storms there has been only in May 1999 in Oklahoma. Meteorologists and scientists are even assuming that some of these tornadoes have reached the strength F 6 on the scale. More precise measurements there is not it though. Thus can not be proved, whether there really was storms of over 600 km / h.

To date, there have been no comparable strong storms more in Oklahoma and throughout the United States.

Destroyed car