The National Weather Service has upgraded the tornado that struck Enderlin, N.D., in June to the strongest classification of a tornado, an extremely rare EF-5.

The twister, which took the lives of three people on the night of June 20, was first thought only to be an EF-3 after an initial survey showed damage consistent with 160 mph winds.

That was until the Grand Forks National Weather Service discovered a train’s 33 cars blown off their tracks. Several of them were fully loaded with grain.

“This particular set of damage that we saw kind of stood out as unique,” Carl Jones, a meteorologist with Grand Forks NWS, said. “We wanted to investigate further.”

Jones said that at the time, his team didn’t know a way to figure out just how strong the tornado had to be to carry such heavy loads.

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