Wichita ? Twenty years after a storm cell produced tornadoes across much of the Midwest on the same day, meteorologists say those tornadoes are still teaching lessons about severe storms.

It was March 13, 1990, when a massive storm system produced at least 60 tornadoes from Texas to Illinois, including five in Kansas, with the worst hitting Hesston and Goessel.

The Wichita branch of the National Weather Service is highlighting the Hesston tornado as part of Severe Weather Awareness Week.

The twister was up to a mile wide in spots and traveled on the ground for 48 miles before it lifted.

It left one child dead south of Burrton and destroyed more than 225 homes and 21 businesses in Hesston. Damage estimates in Harvey County alone reached

$25 million.

Mike Smith, president of WeatherData Inc., a Wichita-based private forecasting service and subsidiary of AccuWeather, said it was the first major tornado recorded by several members of the public with video cameras.

As that footage was played across the nation, it reawakened the public to the dangers of tornadoes, he said.

Smith said the only reason the death toll wasn’t higher in Hesston was that people had ample warning and were able to get to shelter. That reaction was something of a surprise, he said, because it had been 11 years since a large tornado had hit a town of any size: Wichita Falls, Texas, in 1979.

Hesston Mayor John Waltner said he could see the tornado as he drove toward home that day. He described it as a big, black wall churning across the prairie.

“I thought it was going to miss the town,” he said. “I wasn’t seeing debris. And all of a sudden … .”

A microburst developed in front of the tornado, pushing it through the heart of the city.

As that tornado was shredding central Hesston, another twister touched down northeast of the city. Researchers determined later that the two tornadoes traveled parallel to each other for about two miles before the second tornado intensified and swallowed the first.

It quickly grew to F5 strength, the top ranking on the Fujita scale, with winds estimated at more than 300 mph. It moved into Marion County, where it killed 68-year-old Ruth Voth in her home.

Weather researcher Jon Davies said he knows of no other documented case where one tornado became so strong that it pulled another into it.

Two videos captured the Hesston and Goessel tornadoes on the ground at the same time, and closer study of the damage paths confirmed five separate tornadoes.

Weather researchers say the Goessel tornado belongs in any discussion of the strongest twister on record.