The Teton–Yellowstone tornado was a rare high-altitude tornado

Tornado

A tornado is a violent, dangerous, rotating column of air that is in contact with both the surface of the earth and a cumulonimbus cloud or, in rare cases, the base of a cumulus cloud. They are often referred to as a twister or a cyclone, although the word cyclone is used in meteorology in a wider...

 which occurred on July 21, 1987 in the U.S. State of Wyoming

Wyoming

Wyoming is a state in the mountain region of the Western United States. The western two thirds of the state is covered mostly with the mountain ranges and rangelands in the foothills of the Eastern Rocky Mountains, while the eastern third of the state is high elevation prairie known as the High...

. Rated at F4 on the fujita scale

Fujita scale

The Fujita scale , or Fujita-Pearson scale, is a scale for rating tornado intensity, based primarily on the damage tornadoes inflict on human-built structures and vegetation...

, it was the strongest tornado ever recorded in the state. The tornado cut through a 24 miles (38.6 km) long, 1.5 miles (2.4 km) wide swath of the Teton Wilderness

Teton Wilderness

Teton Wilderness is located in Wyoming, United States. Created in 1964, the Teton Wilderness is located within Bridger-Teton National Forest and consists of 585,238 acres . The wilderness is bordered on the north by Yellowstone National Park and to the west by Grand Teton National Park and the John...

 and Yellowstone National Park

Yellowstone National Park

Yellowstone National Park, established by the U.S. Congress and signed into law by President Ulysses S. Grant on March 1, 1872, is a national park located primarily in the U.S. state of Wyoming, although it also extends into Montana and Idaho...

. The damage occurred at elevations ranging from 8500 to 10000 ft (2,590.8 to 3,048 m), making it the highest altitude violent tornado recorded in the United States. No human fatalities or injuries were recorded, but up to 1,000,000 trees were uprooted by the storm. Most of the damaged forest later burned in the Yellowstone fires of 1988

Yellowstone fires of 1988

The Yellowstone fires of 1988 together formed the largest wildfire in the recorded history of the U.S.'s Yellowstone National Park. Starting as many smaller individual fires, the flames spread quickly out of control with increasing winds and drought and combined into one large conflagration, which...

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