Mondo Knows Facts
The fastest wind ever measured in a tornado topped 480 km/h
A Doppler radar on wheels sampled the Bridge Creek tornado in 1999
During the Oklahoma tornado outbreak of 3 May 1999, a mobile Doppler radar recorded winds of about 484 kilometres per hour inside the Bridge Creek to Moore tornado. Those figures come from remote sensing rather than a cup anemometer, which no tornado would survive. The reading remains the highest wind speed measured at ground level.
Where this comes from
NOAA National Severe Storms Laboratory
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Tags: tornado, wind, oklahoma
The fastest wind ever measured in a tornado topped 480 km/h: the short answers
- Where does this come from, and can I check it?
- A Doppler radar on wheels sampled the Bridge Creek tornado in 1999. The figure is taken from NOAA National Severe Storms Laboratory, which is linked in full on this page. Every fact on Mondo Knows names its source rather than repeating an unsourced claim.
- Is this really a records & extremes fact?
- Yes. It sits on the Records & Extremes shelf, one of 1,090 sourced facts grouped into space, animals, the human body, history, science and more. Category pages collect every fact in the same field.
- What else can I read about it?
- The links under the fact point to a quiz, game, puzzle or calculator on the same subject, and the shelf below shows related facts. The wording here is original, and quoted phrases are marked as quotations.