Xenia, Ohio, F-5 Intensity Tornado, Wiki Today and Thursday are the 50 th  anniversary of one of the two most vicious tornado outbreaks in the history of the United States (the other was April 27, 2011). There were 148 tornadoes in less than 17 hours on April 3 and 4, 1974. Tragically, there were 319 fatalities and the damage (2024 dollars) was $5.3 billion. There were eight storms that reached the rare F-5 intensity, which was part of the reason the death toll was so high. The other reason was the sheer number of tornadoes and other severe weather messages overwhelmed the slow 55-word per minute communication systems. Some tornado warnings were not broadcast until after they had expired.   Xenia Tornado at upper left as viewed on Cincinnati radar I was a senior meteorology student at the University of Oklahoma and was in the “map room” that afternoon. We knew something “big” was in progress but it was impossible to get a handle on it because viewing distant radars, pract...

I've been so busy today with forecasts of the terrible weather that will occur tomorrow into Wednesday that this is the first chance I have had to comment on the 50th anniversary of a terrible, terrible tornado anniversary: the Super Outbreak of April 3-4, 1974. It got its name from Dr. Ted Fujita who, along with John McCarthy, Roger Wakimoto, Greg Forbes and others (sorry if I omitted your name) who did a meticulous survey of each of the 148 tornado paths. Fujita when made a meticulously hand-plotted map of the chronological number and intensity of each tornado (below). I am proud to have a copy. What made this tornado outbreak so deadly and unique, along with the tornado outbreak of April 27, 2011, was the predominance of F-4 and F-5 tornadoes. There were 319 fatalities and 5,000+ injuries. The warning system started out working fairly well but then got completely overwhelmed due to the number of tornadoes. An interactive map of the outbreak is here .  The outbreak inspired a go...

[I've bumped this feature because it may have gotten lost in winter storm coverage. It should be of special interest to meteorologists and weather aficionados.] Nineteen seventy-four was a terrible year for tornadoes with 366 people killed. To put that in perspective, with the increase in population, it would be 558 today. Part of the reason was two major tornado outbreaks: one on April 3-4 in the Midwest and South and the other on June 8 in Oklahoma and Kansas. In both cases the tornadoes were exceptionally violent.  Just last week, The Day of the Killer Tornadoes  -- in its entirety -- was posted on YouTube. It tells the story of the April Superoutbreak (as it has come to be known). While a bit hokey, it is a faithful account of the warning system as it was at the time. The viewer quickly learns the warning system was a piecemeal, highly imperfect institution. There were instances that day where the weather wire (which sent the warnings to television and radio...