For the first time in 12 years, the United States has recorded an EF5 tornado, the most powerful type of twister on the Enhanced Fujita wind and damage scale, the National Weather Service confirmed this week.
A deadly tornado in late June that struck near Enderlin, about 40 miles west of Fargo in southeast North Dakota, has been upgraded to an EF5, with estimated winds of more than 200 mph, the weather service said. The storm leveled homes, scoured fields and left a path of destruction nearly 12 miles long.
Before this twister was upgraded, the last EF5 in the United States had occurred in 2013 when a devastating tornado in Moore, Okla., killed 24 people.
A rare reminder for Texas
While North Dakota is far from Tornado Alley’s southern reaches in Texas, the new EF5 designation is a reminder that violent tornadoes can happen anywhere under the right conditions – especially in Texas, which regularly leads the nation in the total number of tornadoes each year…