EF5 and F5 Tornadoes Since 1950

Since the National Weather Service began keeping records in 1950, 138 tornadoes have been rated F5 or EF5 — the highest rating on the Fujita and Enhanced Fujita scales. The Fujita scale (F0–F5) was introduced in 1971 and applied retroactively to earlier events. It was retired in 2007 and replaced by the Enhanced Fujita scale (EF0–EF5), which adjusted wind-speed thresholds downward based on engineering studies of damage. F5 and EF5 are not the same rating, but both correspond to the highest classification of their era's scale.

The most recent EF5 was the June 20, 2025 Enderlin, North Dakota tornado, which derailed thirty-three train cars and tossed an empty 72,000-lb tanker car nearly 1,000 feet from the track. It killed no one. Before Enderlin, the previous EF5 was the May 20, 2013 Moore, Oklahoma tornado — a twelve-year gap during which several candidate events (the 2013 El Reno tornado, the 2024 Greenfield tornado) were rated EF3 or EF4 despite radar-derived wind speeds that would have qualified them historically. The Enderlin rating relied on a relatively new evidence type — debris-trajectory analysis from peer-reviewed methodology — that may unlock more EF5 ratings going forward.

EF5 (2007–present): 15 tornadoes

Each row links to the original NWS event narrative.

F5 (1953–1999): 123 tornadoes

The Fujita scale was applied to events as far back as 1950, but no F5 was recorded before 1953. The last F5 was the Bridge Creek–Moore tornado on May 3, 1999 — eight years before the Enhanced Fujita scale replaced the original.

What separates EF5 from EF4

The threshold is wind speed: greater than 200 mph for EF5 (over 261 mph for F5 on the original scale). Because direct anemometer measurement is rare, ratings are inferred from damage indicators — twenty-eight standard objects (well-built homes, mobile homes, schools, transmission towers, hardwood trees) each with degrees of damage and an associated wind-speed range. EF5 requires the most extreme degree on indicators that can sustain it: well-constructed homes swept clean from the foundation, asphalt scoured from roads, debarked trees in long rows.

The 2024 publication of the Miller et al. Estimating Wind Speeds in Tornadoes Using Debris Trajectories of Large Compact Objects in Monthly Weather Review introduced a complementary evidence type: forensic analysis of how far heavy compact objects (rail cars, oil tanks) were thrown. The 2025 Enderlin EF5 rating cites this methodology directly. Whether radar-derived wind speeds (e.g. mobile Doppler) will ever count toward damage-based ratings remains an open question in the survey community.