NASA Captures Image of Storm System that Spawned Oklahoma Tornado (Video)

NASA has released an image of the massive storm system that spawned the mile-wide tornado that slammed into Moore, Oklahoma. The system moved over the south central United States and was captured by various satellites in the area.

The Oklahoma tornado swirled out of a fast-developing storm at around 2:45 p.m. on Monday. It tore across 17 miles of ground over 50 minutes, damaging or destroying any buildings in its way, according to the New York Times. Wind speeds reached up to 210 miles per hour, which made it an EF5; that means it was the most powerful category of tornadoes possible, according to CNN.

The tornado partly caused so much destruction because it was so slow moving. It inched forward at a relatively stately 20 to 25 miles per hour. It whipped debris to the air and some pieces fell as far as 100 miles away in the city of Tulsa, according to the Earth Observatory.

Before, during and after the tornado, satellites provided imagery and data to forecasters, allowing them to track the massive storm. The first tornado warning was issued by 2:40 p.m. and by 3:01 p.m., a tornado emergency was issued for Moore. By 3:36 p.m., the tornado had spun down and dissipated--but not before killing at least 24 people.

NASA's Aqua satellite was actually able to capture a visible-light image that provided a detailed look at the supercell thunderstorm. NOAA's GOES-13 satellite provided data on the storm's movement and the NASA-NOAA Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership satellite's lightning observations revealed that the thunderstorm complex was still active after nightfall, according to NASA.

About four minutes after the tornado dissipated, NASA's satellite was able to capture a visible image of the thunderstorm that spawned the Moore tornado. You can see white clouds covering Moore and stretching all the way into parts of Texas. The red line of the image shows the tornado's track.

Want to see the supercell in action? You can watch the thunderstorm system over Oklahoma in the time-laps video below, as viewed by the GOES-East satellite, courtesy of the Earth Observatory.