Before Mayfield, Hackleburg was the best analog to Tri state. But there's a world of difference between 103miles and roughly 170miles in terms of longevity tbh. And Hackleburg did a semi-cycle near Mount Hope and it's life span can be clearly divided into two part which made It more similar to El Reno 11 or Bridge Creek 99. Actually El Reno 11 lasted even longer than Hackleburg and people rarely say El Reno was similar to Tri state. Equally important here was Hackleburg even not the longest tornado on that day whileTri state/Mayfield was easily the most conspicuous tornado of their outbreak. Hackleburg had the environment as good as It can be so if I had to guess I would say Hackleburg likely the strongest of the three.While its path length was nowhere near as long, Hackleburg-Phil Campbell is probably the best analog for the Tri-State tornado in modern times as it was at high-end EF5 intensity for most of its path and followed a highway that took it through town and town (similar to the Tri-State following a railroad) and killed tons of people with a high injury to fatality ratio.
Also it's a big exaggeration to say Hackleburg/Tri State was high end EF5 for most part of its life because It was not. There's no too much difference about house quality between Tri state and Mayfield which means that Tri State in nowadays would also be captious by engineers and probably won't be rated EF5. And like I said about Mayfield, I also didn't see many trees got debarked for Tri state in pics available. The difference here was Tri State probably had a wider core than Mayfield or Hackleburg which made It more deadlier. Lack of warning system also played a important role in it.
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