Science and WeatherSee the Moore, Oklahoma tornado’s path of destruction from space
Although there have been plenty of images of the tornado that tore through Moore, Oklahoma on May 20th, showing the devastation from both the ground and in the air, new imagery from space reveals the full extend of the damage this twister inflicted, as it carved a scar across the city.
According to NASA's Earth Observatory:
On June 2, 2013, the Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer (ASTER) on NASA’s Terra satellite observed the scar of that tornado on the Oklahoma landscape. In this false-color image, infrared, red, and green wavelengths of light have been combined to better distinguish between water, vegetation, bare ground, and human developments. Water is blue. Buildings and paved surfaces are blue-gray. Vegetation is red. The tornado track appears as a beige stripe running west to east across this image; the color reveals the lack of vegetation in the wake of the storm.
This tornado ranked as EF-5 on the Enhanced Fujita scale, the strongest type there is, with winds of up to 340 kilometres per hour. It was on the ground for roughly 40 minutes, cutting a path through the city nearly 30 kilometres long and over 2 kilometres wide, and resulting in an estimated $1.5-$2 billion in damages, 387 injuries, and 24 deaths.
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It was the first of two EF-5 tornadoes that struck Oklahoma in the month of May. The second carved a winding path south of the city of El Reno, OK on May 31st. After examining the damage path, scientists determined that this second tornado was the widest ever recorded, reaching a diameter of 4.2 kilometres at one point. It was this tornado that caused the unfortunate deaths of six people, including storm chasers Tim Samaras, his son Paul, and their colleague, Carl Young.
The average warning time for a tornado is currently 13 minutes, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), but the National Weather Service reports that the residents of Moore had 36 minutes of warning before the tornado struck the city. This advanced warning was due, in part, to advances in forecasting techniques and technology, but also due to the efforts of storm spotters and storm chasers to warn people about these dangerous storms.
(Video courtesy: NASA/NOAA/Space.com)
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