On March 18, 1925 a dark “smokey fog” touched down approximately three miles northwest of Ellington, Missouri. It would become known as the Tri-State Tornado. By all accounts the Tri-State Tornado was one for the record books.
The Tri-State Tornado is currently the U.S. record holder for longest tornado track (219 miles), most deaths in a single tornado (695), and most injuries in a single tornado (2027). While it occurred before the modern record, it is considered by all accounts to be a F5/EF5 Tornado. It crossed the three states, thus it’s namesake “Tri-State,” tearing through thirteen counties of Missouri, Illinois, Indiana. It crossed over and destroyed or significantly damaged nine towns and numerous smaller villages.
The track of this tornado has been lost to the 89 years of growth of vegetation and development by humans. One map, done by Wilson and Changnon in 1971, seems to provide the most accurate path of this tornado. However, in searching for an electronic or digitized copy of this map I could not find one. I decided to re-create their map in geographic software as seen below.
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