What is the smallest, largest, average size?
The answer to this depends on what is being measured … the easiest way to answer this is by the size of the damage path. Also, it is important to note that the “average” can be misleading, since most tornadoes are small … a simple average puts too much emphasis on the infrequent large events. A way around this is to use what is called the “median” to represent what is typical. The typical tornado damage path is about one or two miles, with a width of about 50 yards. The largest tornado path widths can exceed one mile, and the smallest widths can be less than 10 yards. Widths can vary considerably during a single tornado, because the size of the tornado can change considerably during its lifetime. Path lengths can vary from what is basically a single point to more than 100 miles. Note that tornado intensity (the peak windspeeds) is not necessarily related to the tornado size … bigger is not necessarily stronger!
