First EF-5 Tornado Since 2013 Confirmed In North Dakota. It Happened In June

Screen grab from a video of the EF-5 tornado in
Enderlin, North Dakota. The tornado happened at
night, and when this image was taken, it was
illuminated by lightning. 

A tornado that struck near Grand Forks, North Dakota has received an EF-5 rating, the most powerful kind of tornado, and the first such twister to hit the U.S. since 2013, the National Weather Service said Monday.  

The tornado actually hit back on June 20 in Enderlin, North Dakota with estimated winds of 210 mph. It killed, three people, stayed on the ground for a little more than 12 miles and was about a mile wide at one point. 

The tornado derailed a freight train, tipped over several fully loaded grain hopper cars and lofted tanker cars, including one empty tanker care that was tossed about 475.7 feet, according to the National Weather Service office in Grand Forks, North Dakota. 

National Weather Service meteorologists usually visit the damage path of a tornado within a day or so of it occurring to start assessing the strength of the storm. It often takes days or weeks of analysis to come up with a rating for a tornado.  This one took longer to analyze because the damage it caused on the train was unusual, the Associated Press reported. 

The tornado also left trees in a river valley with only stubs of large branches or trunks remaining. The bark was torn off the remains of the trees. Other trees were entirely uprooted and moved away from their original spot. 

An EF-5 tornado is the worst of the worst. Their winds are 200 mph or more. They're strong enough to shred a well-built home and just leave a bare concrete pad standing. Sometimes the twister will take the concrete pad, or parts of it. An EF-5 tornado can peel bark from any trees left partially standing after the storm. These tornadoes can suck the pavement off of streets, and dig trenches in fields. 

It used to be the U.S. would have an average of one each year. Some years have none, a few have a handful. 

But until this tornado, there hadn't been an EF-5 since May, 2013 when a twister of that strength trashed Moore, Oklahoma, killing at least two dozen people. 

In the North Dakota tornado, a home was entirely swept away and disintegrated, leaving a concrete slab, which would indicate a possible EF-5.  But investigators noted that the anchor bolts on the house might have been substandard, so they couldn't use the house to declare an EF-5. It took the damage to the train to seal the designation. 

As I wrote in March, part of the reason for the long EF-5 drought might have been the way they were measured. 

Before 2007, if a tornado swept a house entirely off its foundation and shredded it, it was considered an EF-5.   Starting that year, such damage was designated as having been created by high-end EF-4 tornadoes.  

So, that rule change meant that some tornadoes between 2013 and 2025 that might in the past would have been rated EF-5 ended up being rated EF-4. Researchers think that as many as 13 EF-4 tornadoes since 2008 would have been EF-5s had not the change been made.