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May 16 tornado in St. Louis reached 1.8 miles wide, NWS report says 36%
By Rob Edwards0%
5/15/2026, 7:10:49 PM
BS Summary: This article contains 14 faulty reasoning types, including Appeal to Authority, Unattributed Quote, and Framing Effect, with Confirmation Bias as the most egregious example at 18.9% saturation with 43 hits. Analysis detected 280 faulty-reasoning hits from 228 analyzed words, generating a BS Score of 42.8% and a BS Rank of 36% (10,851 of 16,813 articles). This article is better (less manipulative) than 64.50% of the article peer group.
The deadly EF3 tornado that tore through St.
Louis last May was even larger and more complex than first believed.
The National Weather Service released a newly updated assessment of the May 16, 2025, storm that killed five people on Friday.
The weather service identified a second tornado that hit the Metro East that day and expanded the width of the main tornado to a record-setting 1.8 miles.
According to the report, the EF3 tornado that hit St.
Louis County, St.
Louis and western Madison County dissipated just outside Granite City.
A second tornado, an EF1 with maximum sustained winds of 107 mph, tracked through parts of western Madison County and lifted just east of SIU Edwardsville.
Weather service officials revised the width of the EF3 tornado to 3,168 yards, or 1.8 miles.
They said that’s the widest tornado in the St.
Louis region since reliable records began in 1950.
The second tornado had a width of 0.3 miles.
Authorities say they used a combination of ground survey data and aerial imagery to make adjustments to their initial damage assessment.
The agency said reviews like this are important to ensure the historical record is correct.
The weather service posted detailed information about its revised damage assessment as part of a toolkit that is now online.
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