Thursday's tornado that caused severe damage to Moore and southeastern Oklahoma City is speculated by an expert to be an F-3.
Kelvin Droegemeier, director of OU's Center for Analysis and Prediction of Storms, said he thinks the tornado will be classified by the National Weather Service as an F-3 after its teams survey the damage.
Tornadoes are classified on the Fujita scale, a system devised in 1971, according to the National Weather Service. The classification is determined by the damage done by a tornado to a specific wind speed range. An F-3 consists of severe damage and winds between 158 and 206 m.p.h.
"It's hard to tell, though," Droegemeier said. "Some of it might be F-4."
Droegemeier, who is also an OU regents' professor of meteorology, was not chasing the storm or near the damage. He used aerial pictures shown by local television stations to judge what the tornado's classification may be.
Judging the classification of Thursday's tornado is not a difficult task, said Fred Carr, OU's director of the School of Meteorology.
"A layman could do it once they've seen a few pictures," Carr said.
The path of Thursday's tornado is similar to the 1999 tornadoes' path that devastated Moore and southeastern Oklahoma City four years ago, Droegemeier said. But the path is merely a coincidence.
"In a statistical sense, there's no correlation between the two," Droegemeier said.
If the National Weather Service agrees with the F-3 speculation after surveying the damage, Thursday's tornado will not compare to the F-5 tornado of 1999, the strongest tornado ever recorded.
Droegemeier said the most amazing aspect of Thursday's storm was the warning local media were able to give people in the storm's path.
Without the media, Droegemeier said Thursday's storm could have resulted in several fatalities.
One fatality from Thursday's tornado was reported as of 10:15 p.m. Forty-four people died in the 1999 tornado.
Interview with tornado survivor Art Henry(Windows Media Player only)
Interview with Oklahoma City Police Officer Dean Lindsey(Windows Media Player only)
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