101 Facts About 1999 Bridge Creek Moore Tornado That Will Scare You

 Tornados are destructive and dangerous in nature.

According to the national weather service, tornados are these violent rotating columns of air extending from a thunderstorm to the ground. The scariest thing about tornadoes is, they can occur at any time, any place, irrespective of the type of weather or location.

Severe thunderstorms with moist, warm, and unstable air pave the way for tornado formation. Have you ever heard about the term ‘calm before the storm’, because if you ever come across a raging tornado situation, the air and atmosphere are typically calm and quiet before these natural monsters decide to blow?

Tornadoes are categorized into various categories based on their wind speeds and damage wrecking level. Meteorologists never predicted such a deadly tornado coming on its way. Even the storm prediction center failed to see it.

The Storm Prediction Center is a government agency that is part of the National Centers for Environmental Prediction, operating under the control of the National Weather Service. There have been several deadly tornadoes with heavy rain in the past.

This was not the first tornado, there have been deadly tornadoes, but this was the deadliest tornado and the strongest tornado ever witnessed around central Oklahoma and south Oklahoma City, around Comanche county.

On May 3, the category breakdown of the tornados is as follows: F0- 33 tornados, F1- nine tornados, F2- seven tornados, F3- eight tornados, F4- two tornados, F5- one tornado. Violent tornados are the ones in the F4-F5 range, strong tornadoes are between the F2-F3 range, and weak tornadoes are between the F0-F1 range.

The word tornado derives its origin from the Latin word 'tonare' meaning ‘to thunder’. Tornados often start their journey of destruction as moist funnel clouds (funnel clouds are rotating clouds) having no strong wind. Later on, when they pick up enough momentum, the harmless rotating cloud is transformed into mayhem, causing a mass of spinning particles.

Depending upon the environment, their form, their color, and appearance may vary. Tornados traveling through water may have a color of blue or white, a tornado forming in the mountainous plains region may turn into red color.

The majority of the violent tornado warnings prove to be false alarms, of course with the exception of some. In this article, we will be learning about the 1999 Bridge Moore tornado, which to date is considered to be one of the deadliest and strongest, and violent tornadoes ever formed.

The Bridge Moore tornado as the title says took place on May 3, 1999. This F5 tornado hit the areas of Moore and Bridge Creek of Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, United States, taking the life of 46 people, injuring 800, and causing damages of over $1 billion. 

This makes the tornado the fifth costliest of the lot. The humid air pooling into the region of the Moore, Norman, and Bridge Creek proved to act as a fuel supplier for the cold strong storms.

The strength of a tornado is generally measured in what is known as the enhanced Fujita scale and the Bridge Moore tornado turned out to be on the scale of F5  in case if you are having a hard time calculating how fast that is, the sheer speed of the tornado led the loss of many and the city endured irrecoverable damages.

F5 tornado was estimated to have had a maximum wind speed between 261-318 mph (420.03 - 511.77 kph). The F5 tornado is the highest possible ratings on the various tornado intensity scales.

F5 tornado is also called an EF5 tornado. The strength and violence of this particular tornado were so much so that it led the National Weather Forecast Office to issue the first-ever tornado emergency.

After reading about the 1999 tornado and other storms, also check facts on the 1989 Bangladesh tornado and 1925 Tristate tornado.

How big was the tornado that hit Moore Oklahoma?

The tornado that hit Oklahoma on May 3, 1999, was of course devastating. According to Doppler On Wheels (DOW), the tornado was at a speed of around 301 mph (484.41 kph). In case you are having a hard time grasping how deadly that is, it caused the damage to a certain extent.

Thousands of people were rendered homeless and hundreds of people were injured and more than 8000 homes were damaged. This tornado was big enough to create the 74 vortexes of monster tornadoes which traveled across to at least five states, wreaking havoc and causing considerable damage.

The tornado hit Bridge Creek and Morre with F5 intensity, creating a state of panic and tension in the citizens of Oklahoma; the tornado had a width of about 0.8 mi (1.29 km). Central Oklahoma holds the record of being one of the top states, being the target of these deadly, strongest, and violent tornado disasters.

Some of the facts about the 1999 Bridge Creek Moore tornado that will scare you! Did you know the damage caused by the bridge creek tornado was so deadly, that the damages caused are still visible in some regions?

1041 apartments, 8132 homes, 260 businesses, 11 public buildings, and seven churches are recorded to have faced the damages caused by the Bridge Creek tornado. The bridge creek tornado was not a single tornado but a group of 74 tornados (on May 3) wreaking havoc across five states throughout the central plain.

The spring season of May 3rd is what rendered the tornado the moisture and mugginess it needed to create and destroy the whole city of Oklahoma. The 1999 Moore tornado has the highest wind speed ever recorded on earth.

The monster tornado was at such magnitude that the National Weather Services called in for the emergency tornado session! After the 2018 Oklahoma City tornado, the 1999 Bridge Moore tornado came down to second place as the most powerful tornado to have occurred in state history.

The town of Moore was hit again by an EF5 tornado in 2013 but the damages were a lot less compared to the 1999 F5 bridge Moore tornado!

How did the tornado affect economically?

Financially and economically 1999 Bridge Creek Moore tornado caused significant damages. The damages, in fact, were so much that victims still remember its destruction. The direct and indirect impact on human lives, roads, power lines, agriculture, factories, homes, apartments, public buildings, churches was immense.

The total damage was evaluated at 1.1 billion U.S. dollars. Many people living on the Bridge of Moore, Creek, Kansas counties, and Norman lost their source of livelihood, the people they loved, the place they called home, and their other assets.

A source reports that no one living in those regions like the Kansas counties expected a natural disaster or devastation of the deadliest magnitude. The consequence was such that most of the damage was irreversible.

How many F5 tornadoes have hit Moore?

Moore is a suburb of Oklahoma City, most of the year the place and atmosphere are actually pleasant. Since Oklahoma is situated near the rocky mountain ranges, the cool, dry air from there often meets with the moist, humid atmosphere.

This occurrence especially in the spring and summer giving Oklahoma the infamous name of ‘tornado alley'. Moore has been hit at least two times with the F5 intense tornado and both of the times the damage was extremely destructive.

The 2013 Oklahoma City tornado while being almost the same in intensity as the 1999 Bridge Creek Moore tornado, the number of fatalities is the only thing that differs. While the former killed 24 people, the latter took the life of more than 46 individuals.

How long did it take to recover from the tornado?

The tornado outbreak of 1999 made an everlasting impact on the state. The tornado lasted about one hour 25 minutes, causing enough damage to the nearby regions.

As time passed, the losses were recovered. In over four years, the situation had improved when an F4 tornado hit tracing the same path, there were no casualties.

It took several years to recover from the loss caused by the tornados financially. With the generous donations and volunteers' help, the victims of this deadly natural disaster could finally recover. But the mental toll of losing their loved ones continues to cause them pain, the recovery that will of course take fairly longer.

Here at Kidadl, we have carefully created lots of interesting family-friendly facts for everyone to enjoy! If you liked our suggestions for 101 Facts About 1999 Bridge Creek Moore Tornado That Will Scare You then why not take a look at the 1966 north Dakota blizzard or the 1944 Vesuvius eruption.