IN DEPTH
The Tri-State Tornado of 1925 traveled approximately 219 miles and spent more than three hours on the ground, causing mass destruction and peril. The diameter was more than a mile across and was traveling at speeds exceeding 70 mph. This remarkable event surpassed records on the fact that most northeasterly tornadoes, as this tornado was, travel at speeds between 20 to 40 mph and usually only cover between one to about 100 miles.
A tornado is a violent, dark, rotating funnel-shaped cloud that develop from wind shears. A wind shear is where weaker winds are spinning below stronger winds which then causes an updraft forming a tornado. Tornadoes usually occur during the spring months, such as this which occurred in March of 1925, associated with huge thunderstorms and often along the cold front.
The Tri-State Tornado formed due to a “cold low-pressure system that had been following a jet-stream down from Canada, along the Texas-Oklahoma border and into Missouri. It is here that it hit a warm front from the Gulf of Mexico and conditions were made perfect for a tornado outbreak.”
References:
History.com Editors (2010, February 9). The Tri-State Tornado. Retrieved from https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/the-tri-state-tornado
The Tri-State Tornado – How It Works. (2016, October 26). Retrieved from https://www.howitworksdaily.com/the-tri-state-tornado/
History.com Editors (2010, February 9). The Tri-State Tornado. Retrieved from https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/the-tri-state-tornado
The Tri-State Tornado – How It Works. (2016, October 26). Retrieved from https://www.howitworksdaily.com/the-tri-state-tornado/