A Tornado in Enderlin, North Dakota, has officially been upgraded to the ‘deadliest category’ - the first to be classified as such since 2013.
The Enderlin tornado was officially given the EF-5 status, the highest rating it could have on the Enhanced Fujita scale.
The news was confirmed by the National Weather Service.
The Enderlin tornado was the most severe in over a decade
The recently reclassified tornado struck on June 20 2025 and reached the highest possible intensity.
Wind speeds reached up to 210mph.
It’s the first EF-5 tornado recorded in the USA since May 2013 when a storm hit Moore, Oklahoma and killed 24 people.
The EF scale is used to assess tornados by their strength - which is to say, wind speed - as well as the damage that they leave behind after them.
EF-5 is the highest - and most deadly - rating, therefore it is pretty rare for a storm to be classified in this category.
In fact, there have only been 10 EF-5 tornados since the NWS started using this metric in 2007.
This Enderlin one is - as we’ve mentioned - the first since 2013.
New evidence showed the terrifying power of the storm
The EF-5 category is reserved for only those tornadoes that go above 200mph wind speed, and they usually cause complete destruction to anything in the path.
Winds at that speed can flip cars and carry them off, destroy entire homes, and leave very little standing behind them as they pass through.
That’s partially why this reclassification has happened.
The damage done in Enderlin was analyzed after the event, with specialists and meteorologists conducting investigations.
They found new evidence that showed off the sheer power of the storm.
A train was derailed south of Enderlin, and a number of fully-loaded grain cars were tipped over, each weighing more than 90,000 kilograms.
One of the empty cars was tossed a full 145 meters from the tracks.
Based on this and other evidence, the tornado was upgraded.
It formed just after 11:00pm on the day, heading north-east for around 12 miles after touching down near the town.
At one stage, it measured over a mile across.
Three people were killed, but - thankfully - the tornado largely hit rural areas, which meant that the overall damage was not as bad as it could have been.
That doesn’t mean it wasn’t significant though.
Farms and homes were destroyed, bark was stripped off trees, and a house was pulled straight off the foundations.