Seven Years Ago Today: The Moore, OK Tornado

20 May 2020, 3:00 am

On May 20th, 2013, a powerful EF-5 tornado moved through the city of Moore, Oklahoma, leading to 24 fatalities and leaving behind a trail of incredible destruction.

This is also the most recent EF-5 tornado to strike the United States. Here’s a look at the deadly twister:

And the destruction that followed it:

The tornado was on the ground for about 14 miles before moving through the densely-populated Oklahoma City suburb of Moore, where it killed several children at the Plaza Towers Elementary School when a wall collapsed during the tornado. After originating near Newcastle just before 3pm CDT that day, the tornado moved through Moore before dissipating in southeast Oklahoma City around 3:35pm CDT.

At its peak, the tornado was over a mile wide.

The National Weather Service office in Norman, Oklahoma has more detailed information on the tornado here.

Here are more first-hand accounts from people who witnessed this tornado, including WeatherNation field correspondent Ben McMillan.

Stay with WeatherNation for the latest on severe weather.

About the author

Chris Bianchi

Chris doesn't remember a time when that he didn't love the weather. When he was five years old, he wrote his first words, "Partly cloudy", in Ms. Benn's kindergarten class. According to Chris, it's been a love affair ever since, from teaching himself how to read forecast models at age 12, to landing at WeatherNation. Growing up in Greenwich, Connecticut, he started to go after his lifelong drea... Load Morem of becoming a meteorologist by predicting whether or not there would be snow days - turning him into Greenwich High School's "defacto weatherman". He turned that snow day-predicting website into a front page story a local newspaper, which in turn earned him a look at WABC-TV in New York, where Chris did the weather live on-air at the age of 16. He attended Boston University, where he continued being a "weather nerd", performing weather updates on the campus radio and TV stations, and doing the daily forecasts for the student newspaper. Following his studies at BU, Chris worked at Mile High Sports and ESPN Denver for four years while pursuing his certification in Broadcast Meteorology from Mississippi State University. Chris is a huge sports fan, rooting for the Rockies, Nuggets, Broncos, Avalanche and UConn. He frequently find links between sports and weather, including an investigative analysis he did in 2013, finding trends between Peyton Manning's play and game time temperature (he doesn't like the cold). Chris also enjoys running, playing any sport, socializing and periodically overeating at all-you-can-eat buffets.

Seven Years Ago Today: The Moore, OK Tornado

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