A Kansas meteorologist says the deadly tornadoes that killed hundreds of people last year in Joplin and in the South don’t measure up to the monster storm that destroyed almost all of Greensburg five years ago.

Mike Umscheid says he had never seen a 200-knot velocity reading on radar before the May 4, 2007, tornado that killed 11 people in the southern Kansas community.

The Wichita Eagle reports emergency officials think the death toll could have been much higher if Umscheid hadn’t issued a rare “tornado emergency” 26 minutes before Greensburg was hit.

University of Oklahoma researcher Les Lemon teamed up with Umscheid to write a research paper on the outbreak the night of the Greensburg storm.

Both believe it was 1 of the most powerful tornadoes on record.