JOPLIN, Mo. — Eyewitness accounts and studies of the ruins have led weather experts to conclude the eye of the deadly Joplin tornado measured up to three football fields as it swept across the city.
The eye of a tornado is the calm, circular center of the storm and its width is normally only a few feet or a few yards across.
Bill Davis, chief meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Springfield, Mo., said the Joplin tornado’s eye appeared to stretch to 300 yards.
That could help explain the high death toll of 158 people in the tornado that struck May 22 at dinnertime, destroying one-third of Joplin. More than 1,000 people were injured.
Some of the victims may have thought the tornado had passed over and that it was safe to emerge from hiding when they were actually experiencing only the calm of the eye’s frontside, said the storm experts.
But if they stood up for more than a few seconds, they would have been slammed by the over 200 mph winds that occurred again once the eye’s backside moved through an area.
And with a 300-yard eye, the calmness could have lasted for several seconds, given the slow ground speed of the tornado, said Davis.
He estimated the overall width of the tornado at three-quarters of a mile as it moved across the south side of Joplin.
“If you were in it (the eye), you could sense that things had slowed down,” said Davis.
Eric Parker and his sister Kaylee said they were among those those who witnessed the wide eye of the storm while taking cover in a corridor at Alps Liquor Store.
“After the first (high winds) hit, it slowed way down,” said Eric Parker. “Some of the people were trying to get up and run off. We yelled at them, ‘It’s not over yet.’ That’s when the back end came through and hit even harder.”
Kaylee Parker said the eye’s lull lasted a few seconds.
“I looked up and saw these vortexes, and saw debris flying in the air,” she said. “It looked like I could see blue sky at the top.”
She said her cellphone recorded the sound of the tornado, and that it had the loud whining noise of a jetliner preparing for takeoff.
Rance Junge, owner of the Pronto Pharmacy, said he also witnessed the eye of the tornado. He recalled seeing daylight and thinking, “Oh, gosh. We made it.”
Then, within seconds, the eye’s backside passed, and “the next thing you know you saw it coming again.”
The pharmacy was destroyed. Junge suffered injuries from flying debris.
Davis, the Weather Service meteorologist, said the circular pattern of the debris field was another indication of the unusual width of the tornado’s eye.
Bill Gallus, a professor of meteorology at Iowa State University who studies violent storms, said the eye can vary according to the ferocity of a tornado.
Joplin’s tornado has been rated an EF-5, the most powerful category, with winds ranging beyond 200 mph. More than 8,000 homes, 500 businesses and 18,000 vehicles were destroyed.
“They have got to be wide and slow moving to experience this eye-like effect,” said Gallus.
