Chasing the world’s biggest tornado

Witness History

BBC

History, Personal Journals, Society & Culture

4.4 • 1.6K Ratings

🗓️ 24 May 2023

⏱️ 9 minutes

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Summary

On 31 May 2013, a huge tornado hit an area close to El Reno in the US state of Oklahoma. It was the widest tornado ever recorded and produced extreme winds of more than 400 kilometres an hour. Eight people were killed, including three storm chasers. One of the people tracking the storm was Emily Sutton, a meteorologist with KFOR-TV in Oklahoma City. She’s a member of the station’s storm chasing team and was caught in the tornado. She tells Rob Walker about the impact that day had on her and other storm chasers. Archive: KFOR-TV/Nextstar Media Group (Photo: Cars damaged by the El Reno tornado. Credit: Joe Raedle via Getty Images)

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello there. Welcome to the witness history podcast here on the BBC World Service. I'm Rob Walker and in today's program we're going back 10 years to May 2013.
0:13.0	We'll be hearing about what it was like to be a storm chaser on the trail of the widest tornado ever recorded.
0:20.0	It's May the 31st 2013. So their storms are threatening large areas in the US state of Oklahoma.
0:36.0	Warnings from the government's national weather service are being relayed on local radio.
0:41.0	Take cover now in the storm shelter or an interior rule of a sturdy building. Stay away.
0:46.0	There's no place in the world that tracks tornadoes like Oklahoma in my opinion. I mean, we are in the epicenter of tornado alleys, statistically the most likely county in the US to be struck by tornadoes is Oklahoma County.
0:59.0	One of the meteorologists who was monitoring the storm that day was Emily Sutton. She works for K4 TV in Oklahoma City and she's a member of the station storm chasing team.
1:09.0	So we are crazy enough to have helicopters fly right next to the tornado a fleet of storm trackers driving right up next to the tornado.
1:19.0	The reason for doing this is we want to give people as much advanced warning as possible so they can seek shelter.
1:26.0	Do not stop under bridges or highway over passes. They will not protect you from the tornado.
1:33.0	So here we are. We are prepared in the weather center. We have a game plan. We know where our storm chases will be.
1:40.0	So we went out to our target area by El Reno.
1:44.0	It has multiple fortices. I see the vortices swirling around this tornado. This is a violent tornado.
1:51.0	So we approach the storm all of a sudden it starts dropping small tornadoes. We call those vortices.
1:58.0	So when it starts dropping small tornado space depart, you know it is going to be a huge tornado.
2:05.0	I think we're trying to get a hold of Mike Betis. Mike can you hear us? Guys that's it.
2:10.0	Right there. Look at that monster. This is a huge tornado.
2:14.0	By this point other storm trackers were also monitoring the storm from different locations on the ground.
2:19.0	This from Mike Betis on the weather channel.
2:22.0	Violent tornado right now. We are probably roughly a mile away from it right now and it is absolutely enormous.
2:28.0	Right now you have to get to your shelter as quickly as possible.
2:33.0	So we start to see these multiple vortices and I'm driving. I'm on the phone waiting to go live on air
	...

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