I remember the Apr. 3,1974 outbreak - it chewed up Louisville pretty bad...
Southern Tornado Outbreak Could Be Largest Single-Day Event in History
Thursday, April 28, 2011 The devastating storm system that stretched from Mississippi to Virginia on Wednesday could be the single largest outbreak of tornadoes in history, according to the National Weather Service (NWS).
Southern Tornado Outbreak Could Be Largest Single-Day Event in History
Thursday, April 28, 2011 The devastating storm system that stretched from Mississippi to Virginia on Wednesday could be the single largest outbreak of tornadoes in history, according to the National Weather Service (NWS).
Russell Schneider, director of the Storm Prediction Center at the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), told CNSNews.com that there have been 164 tornadoes reported from this storm system. The single day record set on Apr. 3, 1974 is 148 tornadoes. The largest number of tornadoes in a single event was April 3, 1974 with 148 tornadoes, Schneider said. Weve received 164 tornado reports for the 27th of April alone. Schneider said that the final count of tornadoes could change as the NWS confirms each report. Sometimes, he said, a single tornado can generate multiple reports.
What has been confirmed is that this storm has been the third deadliest since 1950, when the NWS began keeping official records on tornadoes. All told, he said, it may be the eighth deadliest in American history, based on records dating back to 1840. The Weather Service can confirm there were more than 170 fatalities yesterday [Apr. 27] but media reports are currently listing approximately 230 fatalities, said Schneider. That would make it the 8th largest one-day tornado fatality count in recorded U.S. weather history. In terms of the modern tornado record that the Weather Service has kept officially its the 3rd largest, he said.
So far this month, the National Weather Service has collected over 600 tornado reports, meaning that the Apr. 27 storm accounted for approximately 25 percent of the reported tornados for the entire month of April. The 230 media-reported fatalities would come close to the second deadliest tornado outbreak in history, which occurred on Apr. 11, 1965 and killed an estimated 260 people. The deadliest single-day tornado outbreak was the April 1974 outbreak that killed 315 people.
Southern Tornado Outbreak Could Be Largest Single-Day Event in History | CNSnews.com