The Super Tornado Outbreal of April 3-4 1974

NOAA Public Affairs ^ | 5-5-2003 | Milwaukee_Guy

[Milwaukee_Guy]

This week marks the 25th anniversary of the April 3-4, 1974, super tornado outbreak. It was the worst tornado outbreak in U.S. history with 148 twisters touching down in 13 states. Before it was over 16 hours later, 330 people were dead and 5,484 were injured in a damage path covering more than 2,500 miles.

Twenty-five years ago, (twenty-nine years ago for 2003) National Weather Service forecasters could see only green blobs on their radar scopes and had to wait for visual confirmation of the tornado before issuing a tornado warning. Today's forecasters, thanks to a $4.5 billion weather service modernization effort, view evolving storms in graphic detail and can now issue warnings before tornadoes even form, with an average lead time of 11 minutes.

"Deadly storms such as the 1974 super outbreak can and will happen again," said Ken Haydu, meteorologist in charge of the National Weather Service's forecast office in Wilmington, Ohio. "The people who experienced the super outbreak have an important story about tornado awareness and preparedness to pass on to later generations."

In all, 13 states were struck by twisters: Alabama, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan, Mississippi, North Carolina, Ohio, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, and West Virginia.

Here you'll find information on the 1974 super outbreak including an audio description of the Louisville tornado by John Forsing, a report on how the tornado outbreak opened eyes about tornado myths and school safety, National Weather Service eyewitness accounts, and sidebar stories.

http://www.publicaffairs.noaa.gov/storms/

[Milwaukee_Guy]

From "Significant Tornadoes" by Thomas P. Grazulis,

95 of the 148 tornadoes were rated F2 or higher. 30 of the total were rated at F4 to F5. 48 of the tornadoes were "killer" tornadoes with the largest loss of life at Xenia Ohio where 34 souls perished.

My comments - Hopefully modernization and education efforts by the NWS paid off in increased warning time and education that resulted in a far lower death toll than previous tornado outbreaks. Godspeed the recovery of those impacted by yesterdays severe weather event.

[Milwaukee_Guy]

outbreal = outbreak (Duh!)

[fieldmarshaldj]

I don't personally remember this since my mother was 5 months pregnant with me when this horrible 2 days occurred. A tornado went straight down our street in front of our house at the time. Fortunately, both our house and yours truly emerged unscathed.

[TomServo]

I remember this. I also remember a friend of mines Jaguar looking like a pancake afterwards.

[Milwaukee_Guy]

A lot has changed since 1974. I remember stories of schools putting kids -on- the bus during tornado warnings.

Now schools are taught to keep kids in tornado shelter areas until the tornado threat has ended.

Obviuos now, but a hard learned lesson for some....

[fieldmarshaldj]

Yup. Being in Nashville, we've already been under 24 straight hours of tornado warnings/watches and have endured 7+ individual storm cells bringing dreadful downpours, wind gusts (30-50+mph), hail, etc. (even as I type, a ribbon of storms is passing over us again). 1974 was considered a bad year, and almost 10 years later to the day (when I was completing 4th grade) in 1984, we had a similar tornado situation. Someone called it the "10-year curse" regarding the truly bad weather, but then all of a sudden, after 1995, it became much more frequent, and now May has become the really bad month, and the tornado belt that usually targeted OK-KS has shifted to include the bulk of TN, and we have an incredibly large number of severe weather occurrences now. Fortunately thanks to better technology, we can track those dreadful storms better than ever. Our local school district decided (when we had a tornado spotting about 3pm today) to keep the kids off the buses until the weather cell passed.