If the El Reno, Oklahoma Tornado Had Hit East Central Florida

The areas shown above are VERY generalized

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DjGUEWZ26_w

MAXIMUM INTENSITY

• The tornado struck mostly rural areas of Canadian County, leading to difficulty establishing

maximum intensity.

• Initial estimate of EF3 was based on damage to several structures, but the inferred tornado

intensity was an underestimate of tornado strength because of the scarcity of damage indicators

and very small regions of extreme winds.

• However, two high-resolution mobile radars acquired high detail datasets of the tornado.

• The University of Oklahoma's RaXPol, a rapid-scan, Polari metric, mobile Doppler radar, measured

winds greater than 295 mph at several times and locations within 500 feet of the ground along the

south side of sub vortices on the south side of the tornado.

• These extreme velocities occurred several times in the RaXPol data.

• Extreme winds associated with small, rapidly-translating sub vortices within the larger tornadic

circulation.

• These intense sub vortices remained over open fields and did not directly affect structures.

• The two most intense sub vortices with the highest velocities occurred north and east of the

intersection of 10th and Radio Road approximately 3 miles SSE of El Reno.

• The observation of winds well above the EF4/EF5 boundary from two independent rapid-scan

mobile radars lends confidence to the observed winds.

• Known damage indicators were compared to RaXPol velocity measurements; good agreement was

found between EF-scale rating and velocities above.

THESE TWO IMAGES ARE VERY VERY GENERALIZED TO GET THE IDEA. ONE SHOWS THE AREA SOUTH OF THE PINEDA CSWY (LEFT)

AND THE OTHER IN THE ORLANDO AREA (RIGHT) TO SHOW ENTIRE AREAS DIRECTLY IMPACTED WIDTH WISE BUT IN NO WAY LENGTH WISE

(WHICH BE IN GENERAL ABOUT 5 TIMES THE DISTANCE SHOWN ,THOUGH AGAIN NOTE THE TORNADO WENT FROM UNDER A MILE
WIDE AS A SMALL VORTEX TO IT'S MAX WIDTH RELATIVELY QUICKLY (AT WHICH TIME IT WAS OVER MAINLY OPEN COUNTRY).

FAST MOVING SUB-VORTICES WHICH MAY HAVE RACED AROUND THE CENTER MIGHT HAVE BEEN RACING AROUND AT UP TO 180 MPH

FORWARD SPEED

"TORNADO ON THE GROUND!"

FOR 40 MINUTES JUST AFTER PEAK OF RUSH HOURS TRAFFIC  (BUT GOOD NEWS. AN EF5 TORNADO HAS NEVER BEEN RECORDED TO HAVE OCCURRED IN FLORIDA)

(MAP DOES NOT INCLUDE THE "KISSIMMEE OUTBREAK" WHICH WAS THE WORST IN EAST CENTRAL FLORIDA HISTORY 1998)