Short answers, pulled from the story.
The Tri-State Tornado, which struck on the 18th of March 1925 across Missouri, Illinois, and Indiana, holds the record for the longest continuous path length at 352 kilometers. A 2007 reanalysis suggested the tornado may have begun 15 miles further west than previously believed, which could extend that record further.
A tornado near El Reno, Oklahoma on the 31st of May 2013 measured approximately 2.6 miles wide, the widest on record. A tornado near Hallam, Nebraska on the 22nd of May 2004 was up to 2.5 miles wide, the second widest documented.
The United States has the most tornadoes of any country in the world, averaging about 1,200 per year. That figure is nearly four times more than estimated in all of Europe, driven by the continent's unique geography, which allows frequent collisions of warm and cold air masses.
As of 2025, the deadliest tornado in world history was the Daultipur-Salturia Tornado in Bangladesh on the 26th of April 1989, which killed approximately 1,300 people. Bangladesh has recorded at least 24 tornadoes in its history that each killed more than 100 people.
Tornadoes are rated by the damage they cause using the Fujita scale or its successor, the Enhanced Fujita Scale, which was implemented in the United States in 2007. Ratings run from EF0, which damages trees but spares substantial structures, to EF5, which can rip buildings off foundations and deform large skyscrapers. A separate TORRO scale runs from T0 to T11.
The record for the fastest wind speed measured in a tornado was set by the 1999 Bridge Creek-Moore tornado, which registered 486 plus or minus 32 kilometers per hour as measured by Doppler radar. Conventional anemometers cannot survive tornado-force winds and debris, so mobile radar units provide the most reliable speed estimates.