Early in the afternoon of May 22, 2011, meteorologists knew a serious weather situation was developing near Joplin, Missouri. By nightfall, 158 souls were gone as a killer EF-5 mile-wide twister had carved a massive path of destruction straight through the heart of the city.
There are some very scientific ways to measure the strength of a tornado. A new ranking attempts to combine some major factors to determine the strongest twisters Missouri has seen in the past decade. The biggest of them all was a 1,800 foot wide beast.
It's a fascinating sight, but I'm not certain that I'd like to be the person seeing it. New video shows a spinning funnel cloud over Illinois and the viewpoint is straight up into the whirling vortex.
A destructive line of thunderstorms produced tornadoes including a wedge twister that damaged many buildings near Trenton, Missouri including a 130-year-old historic church.
Many universities around America have urban legends about tunnels. That's certainly the case with Southeast Missouri State University in Cape Girardeau.