Significant Tornado Events

[Aaron Rider]

Palm Sunday 1965 is just so anomalous to me. Kind of fitting in with that favorable upper Midwest pattern during the mid 19th century. When you look at the annals of tornado history, you see history doesn’t repeat but it does rhyme. You can see super outbreak type events that generally are similar (4/3/74, 4/27/11, 1932, Enigma) and events with more than 10+ violent tornados.

Then there’s Palm Sunday 1965. From the blizzard storm like jet core, geographical location, and extremely high rate of violent tornados (which are probably undercounted judging by research). I’m not saying it’s a one off event, but there’s no real close comparison throughout recorded tornado history due to how new our records are. The amount of violent tornados that day is staggering

Everything about it is absurd. Even OFFICIALLY, it had 18 violent tornadoes. And you're right, the proportion of violent tornadoes to tornadoes overall is insane.

The jet streak was BLASTING away and all of these storms were faster than I ever drive, some apparently as fast as 75 MPH.

I'm STILL trying to find information and pictures on the Williams Bay-Lake Como, WI tornado that day. I know, I distinctly remember someone in this thread posting extremely impressive damage from an obscure "F1" in southern WI. I found these in a local historical society picture but while this indicates the possibility of something greater than F1, it isn't clear.

 

[Juliett Bravo Kilo]

Everything about it is absurd. Even OFFICIALLY, it had 18 violent tornadoes. And you're right, the proportion of violent tornadoes to tornadoes overall is insane.

The jet streak was BLASTING away and all of these storms were faster than I ever drive, some apparently as fast as 75 MPH.

I'm STILL trying to find information and pictures on the Williams Bay-Lake Como, WI tornado that day. I know, I distinctly remember someone in this thread posting extremely impressive damage from an obscure "F1" in southern WI. I found these in a local historical society picture but while this indicates the possibility of something greater than F1, it isn't clear.

View attachment 39661
View attachment 39662

Here you go:

Significant Tornado Events

Damage from the 1883 Rochester tornado likely the strongest tornado in MN history, only tied with the 1919 Fergus Falls tornado.

talkweather.com

 

[Aaron Rider]

Everything about it is absurd. Even OFFICIALLY, it had 18 violent tornadoes. And you're right, the proportion of violent tornadoes to tornadoes overall is insane.

The jet streak was BLASTING away and all of these storms were faster than I ever drive, some apparently as fast as 75 MPH.

I'm STILL trying to find information and pictures on the Williams Bay-Lake Como, WI tornado that day. I know, I distinctly remember someone in this thread posting extremely impressive damage from an obscure "F1" in southern WI. I found these in a local historical society picture but while this indicates the possibility of something greater than F1, it isn't clear.

View attachment 39661
View attachment 39662

By the way, if the data on Tornado Archive is to be believed, there was an F2 tornado near Princeton, WV at about the same time as the super outbreak. Lo and behold,
A 1965 storm summary from the US Commerce Department says a tornado "lifted a two-ton metal roof from a garage" near Princeton at 6:30 AM on June 12. Interesting. I'd have to really dig to find out if this was connected in any way to the main outbreak.

At a minimum, this outbreak had a geographical extent of about 275 miles South-North from Fairfield County, Ohio (or closer to 450 if we count the tornado in WV) to near Bay City, MI, and about 550 E-W miles from near Cleveland (or 600 if you count an apparent F1 in Cadiz, OH) to NE Iowa.




Interestingly, there was another official F2 nearby in Summers County, WV on the preceding Thursday (4/8/65). Pictures are, of course, extremely grainy. Anyway, not that often you get nearly significant tornadoes in WV. The event on 4/8/65 also dropped a couple of F3s further north along the KY/WV border and some other tornadoes in southern Ohio.

 

[Aaron Rider]

Here you go:

Significant Tornado Events

Damage from the 1883 Rochester tornado likely the strongest tornado in MN history, only tied with the 1919 Fergus Falls tornado.

talkweather.com

Awesome. Yeah, that certainly appears to have been F3 at least.

 

[OH-IOan]

Here's something cool I found while doing research on some other tornadoes in 1925 (obviously all overshadowed); there were twin F4s in Iowa on June 3 that Grazulis described as "may have been F5" (referring to both, not just one). I don't think these are well-known at all.

 

[CheeselandSkies]

Palm Sunday 1965 is just so anomalous to me. Kind of fitting in with that favorable upper Midwest pattern during the mid 19th century. When you look at the annals of tornado history, you see history doesn’t repeat but it does rhyme. You can see super outbreak type events that generally are similar (4/3/74, 4/27/11, 1932, Enigma) and events with more than 10+ violent tornados.

Then there’s Palm Sunday 1965. From the blizzard storm like jet core, geographical location, and extremely high rate of violent tornados (which are probably undercounted judging by research). I’m not saying it’s a one off event, but there’s no real close comparison throughout recorded tornado history due to how new our records are. The amount of violent tornados that day is staggering

In terms of a densely concentrated cluster of violent tornadoes, it was similar over the IN/OH/MI border region as 4/27/11 was in east-central MS northeastward across Alabama, and 4/3/74 over southern IN/OH and northern KY.

However, the geographical distribution of it is what really stands out to me. I mentioned this in one of the recent event threads, but no outbreak since even comes close in terms of producing significant tornadoes all the way from Iowa to western Lake Erie. We've seen big troughs with favorable tilts/wavelengths for high-end outbreaks, we've seen broad warm sectors, but I really wish we knew more about the kind of pattern it took to initiate and maintain tornadic supercells across an area so wide E-W, but relatively restricted N-S.

On top of that, it was one of the few (if not the only) known Midwest regional outbreaks to also affect southern Wisconsin with legit supercell (as opposed to QLCS, like 3/31/23) tornadoes. Someone mentioned earlier that some of those were likely stronger than their official ratings.

 

[ColdFront]

In terms of a densely concentrated cluster of violent tornadoes, it was similar over the IN/OH/MI border region as 4/27/11 was in east-central MS northeastward across Alabama, and 4/3/74 over southern IN/OH and northern KY.

I know you’re waiting on a Palm Sunday 1965 Redux to chase LOL. I have something similar, I’m waiting on a 4/3/74 redux set up for Central KY. 3/2/2012 attempted it, but LCLs were too high for the 3 or so discrete cells to take advantage of. Plus I had only been driving for a year and was still relatively new in my severe weather hobby.

 

[DetectiveWX]

The modern day severe wx outlook had it occurred 6 decades earlier. Oh and Trey's video on Palm Sunday is up.


Teleconnections showed a very +TNI, -PDO and a weak nina transforming to a near super nino.

 

[ColdFront]

In terms of a densely concentrated cluster of violent tornadoes, it was similar over the IN/OH/MI border region as 4/27/11 was in east-central MS northeastward across Alabama, and 4/3/74 over southern IN/OH and northern KY.

However, the geographical distribution of it is what really stands out to me. I mentioned this in one of the recent event threads, but no outbreak since even comes close in terms of producing significant tornadoes all the way from Iowa to western Lake Erie. We've seen big troughs with favorable tilts/wavelengths for high-end outbreaks, we've seen broad warm sectors, but I really wish we knew more about the kind of pattern it took to initiate and maintain tornadic supercells across an area so wide E-W, but relatively restricted N-S.

You may have your answer in Trey’s new video

 

[Aaron Rider]

In terms of a densely concentrated cluster of violent tornadoes, it was similar over the IN/OH/MI border region as 4/27/11 was in east-central MS northeastward across Alabama, and 4/3/74 over southern IN/OH and northern KY.

However, the geographical distribution of it is what really stands out to me. I mentioned this in one of the recent event threads, but no outbreak since even comes close in terms of producing significant tornadoes all the way from Iowa to western Lake Erie. We've seen big troughs with favorable tilts/wavelengths for high-end outbreaks, we've seen broad warm sectors, but I really wish we knew more about the kind of pattern it took to initiate and maintain tornadic supercells across an area so wide E-W, but relatively restricted N-S.

On top of that, it was one of the few (if not the only) known Midwest regional outbreaks to also affect southern Wisconsin with legit supercell (as opposed to QLCS, like 3/31/23) tornadoes. Someone mentioned earlier that some of those were likely stronger than their official ratings.

The Wisconsin tornadoes weren't terribly egregious but the damage pics here indicate Williams Bay was certainly more than an F1 while the Watertown tornado was probably F4.

But that's interesting, I had no idea supercells were so rare in Sconnie

 

[ColdFront]

The Wisconsin tornadoes weren't terribly egregious but the damage pics here indicate Williams Bay was certainly more than an F1 while the Watertown tornado was probably F4.

But that's interesting, I had no idea supercells were so rare in Sconnie

Here’s a re analysis of the 1965 event using the WRF model

Golden Horseshoe WX - April 11, 1965 Palm Sunday Tornado Outbreak Case Study - Parameter Selector

@andyhb previously shared his 4/3/74 case study

 

[US_Highway15]

The modern day severe wx outlook had it occurred 6 decades earlier. Oh and Trey's video on Palm Sunday is up.


Teleconnections showed a very +TNI, -PDO and a weak nina transforming to a near super nino.

To be honest, I'd like a more "experienced" certified meteorologist to make a mock SPC outlook, because unless I'm totally wrong, I honestly wouldn't have been surprised if the SPC back in the day would've had a Moderate Risk for this initially on Day 1, unless they would've had a High Risk if the secondary LLJ that formed that day was forecast. Idk maybe they would've issued a High Risk due to the CIN numbers that were in place to keep this setup discrete. But to me, the ingredients in place after doing research, doesn't scream modern day High Risk to me personally.

Of course it's easy to write this up as a High Risk event based off the reports and observations, but thats now how forecasting works obviously.

 

[Lake Martin EF4]

OTD 60 years ago...

April 11, 1965 — Palm Sunday Outbreak

[Note: Click photos for larger versions.] Across the upper Midwestern United States, March of 1965 was cold, snowy and miserable. The month began with blizzard conditions across the region on March…

stormstalker.wordpress.com

April 11th 1965 Palm Sunday Tornado Outbreak

And the Anniversary Question: what tornadoes from this outbreak, if any, would receive an EF5 rating today?

 

[US_Highway15]

OTD 60 years ago...

April 11, 1965 — Palm Sunday Outbreak

[Note: Click photos for larger versions.] Across the upper Midwestern United States, March of 1965 was cold, snowy and miserable. The month began with blizzard conditions across the region on March…

stormstalker.wordpress.com

April 11th 1965 Palm Sunday Tornado Outbreak

And the Anniversary Question: what tornadoes from this outbreak, if any, would receive an EF5 rating today?

Using today's metrics, still none. Back from like 2011-2013 metrics, probably the Goshen/Dunlap tornado that went through Midway. Literally says on one of the WFO recaps, "May have been an F5." I think the Branch/Hillsdale would be rated an EF5. That one reminds me a lot of the Hackleberg Tornado from 4/27.

 

[Kds86z]

OTD 60 years ago...

April 11, 1965 — Palm Sunday Outbreak

[Note: Click photos for larger versions.] Across the upper Midwestern United States, March of 1965 was cold, snowy and miserable. The month began with blizzard conditions across the region on March…

stormstalker.wordpress.com

April 11th 1965 Palm Sunday Tornado Outbreak

And the Anniversary Question: what tornadoes from this outbreak, if any, would receive an EF5 rating today?

Those twins are one of my fav ever old tornado pics.

 

[SpotlightForRareTornadoes]

Tomorrow, 80 years ago...

On April 12th, a deadly tornado outbreak would kill at least 100 people in OK, AR, and MO. The majority of the deaths came from an F5 in Antlers, OK, where the town took a direct hit, killing 70. Despite the significant death toll, the entire outbreak was swept under the rug when President Roosevelt passed away on the same day, making this one of the most forgotten tornado events in American History.

 

[CheeselandSkies]

The Wisconsin tornadoes weren't terribly egregious but the damage pics here indicate Williams Bay was certainly more than an F1 while the Watertown tornado was probably F4.

But that's interesting, I had no idea supercells were so rare in Sconnie

When it comes to classic Plains or high-end Dixie Alley day (4/27)-caliber long-track, cyclic tornadic supercells they are pretty rare; the MKX CWA gets one maybe once every 10 years. It could be argued it's coming up on 20, with Stoughton 2005 being the last one (Oakfield in 1996 and Barneveld '84 prior to that, which is where I got the "10 year" return rate from).

Most of our tornadoes come from either QLCS mode or the smallish supercells from MCV-driven summer events.

 

[AJS]

Quite possibly the only known image of the Amory, MS EF3.

 

[eep]

View attachment 39683
Quite possibly the only known image of the Amory, MS EF3.

Which one? Lol.

 

[AJS]

Which one? Lol.

The 2023 one. Came from the same supercell that produced the infamous Rolling Fork, MS EF4.