11 years ago today, The largest tornado on record went through fields just south of el reno. It had a peak width of 2.6 miles, had peak winds of up to 291 mph near the ground, Although these winds were confined to small subvorticies inside the tornado. This tornado is infamous for it's deceptive size, as the tornado wasn't fully condensed for most of it's life, as well as being heavily rain-wrapped.

Another reason it's remembered is the chaser impacts. The tornado widened quickly, while turning and increasing in speed. Among these chasers were the twistex team, comprising of tim samaras, his son paul, and carl young. They died after an intense sub-vortex impacted and stalled over their car, causing the car to roll. Carl and paul were ejected from the vehicle while tim was still strapped into the seatbelt at the time of his death. Tim could be heard screaming: "WE ARE GOING TO DIE WE ARE GOING TO DIE" over the radio right before his death. Another chaser who was killed was Richard Charles Henderson, just a week before his 36th birthday. His death was heard over the phone by a friend, who heard popping noises followed by the phone going dead.

Tim's Car:

Tim's last tweet is still up on twitter today, showing him driving directly towards the storm that would kill him:

Many other storm chasers were impacted, and survived, including mike bettes, and Brandon Sullivan:

11 years later, the storm chasing community has never had a bigger tragedy.

R.I.P Tim, Paul, Carl, and Richard.