Footage from near Watford City, North Dakota, shows a tornado alarmingly close to buildings on May 26, 2014. Its immediacy explains why the clip travelled so widely.
The Watford City tornado of May 26, 2014
This is an archive event, not a current warning. A camera view cannot independently measure the tornado’s wind speed, width or complete track. An Enhanced Fujita rating comes from assessed damage, rather than a viewer estimating intensity from the funnel’s appearance.
A close view is not a safe position
A video that survives an encounter does not establish that its filming position was safe. For an active event, local warnings and shelter instructions take priority over getting a clearer view. The footage is useful for appreciating how quickly familiar surroundings can become part of a severe-weather scene.
Explore more: a supercell without assuming a tornado; storm photography and its context.
Video: Extreme Close Up Tornado - Watford City, ND (published by Dan).
Reported dimensions and a recognisable setting
The original report described an EF2 tornado, with an estimated peak wind of 120 mph, a width of about 100 yards and a track roughly half a mile long. These are the contemporary account’s reported assessment figures, rather than measurements made from the clip. They give the archive more context than an alarming headline alone, but the images remain a limited view of one part of the event near Watford City.
Buildings provide a familiar scale for the funnel and make its movement easier to follow than it would be against open country. The oil-work setting identified in the original account gives the scene its everyday context: a workplace caught in severe weather.
Sources, photography and further reading
Original feature and image attributions:
- May 26, 2014
- Youtube
- Buzz Feed
- Viral Nova
- Time-Lapse Footage of a Supercell Thunderstorm
- Extremely Rare Spinning Ice Circle Over 50ft Wide Forms in North Dakota River!
- Ice Tsunami Captured on Camera Rising Out of Lake And Destroying Homes as Residents Watch Helplessly From the Shore
- a supercell without assuming a tornado
- storm photography and its context
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