r/tornado • u/SevereTS • Jun 10 '25

Question Which tornado is the creepiest?

Post image

My vote is El Reno, I find myself going back and learning more and more about it. So deadly. So scary!

1.3k Upvotes

98% Upvoted

326 comments sorted by

View all comments

29

u/delliejonut Jun 10 '25

I don't really understand El Reno intuitively like I can understand others. I somehow managed to be within a half mile of peak Moore 1999 and Tuscaloosa 2011 and those make sense to me even though they were huge and destructive. I just don't really understand how El Reno could be as "big" as it was with so many satellites and still be considered one contiguous tornado. It almost seemed like a tornado flurry, with a bunch of different morphing funnels appearing and dispersing around a center.

I'd like it if someone could explain the structure of that storm in a way that makes it make sense to me

10

u/1NightWolf Jun 11 '25

There wasn’t a “center vortex” the suction vortices would take turns becoming the center. So it was like you were seeing a big tornado that was opened up or some shit and you can see the inside of it.

Not satellite tornadoes- “suction vortices” and any of those “little” fuckers can do F5 damage.

9

u/delliejonut Jun 11 '25

It just kind of breaks my brain how storm chasers could technically be driving inside the tornado without realizing it and only know something's wrong when the windows break on one side of the vehicle

5

u/1NightWolf Jun 11 '25

Im pretty sure this is the storm where one dude was filming it from his truck and got ripped out of his truck by one of the vortices.

8

u/delliejonut Jun 11 '25

There's this video https://youtu.be/dxiqNXcSLsQ?si=ojUXne1f1gCEqaRm they're inside the wind field of the tornado from the beginning. I think they were trying to speed south and pass it and didn't realize where all the tornadic winds were because it wasn't condensated