1974 Super Outbreak

This last week has had a major weather anniversary for the weather enthusiast, and a scary memory for quite a few middle aged folks.  On April 3rd & 4th, 1974; 148 tornadoes ripped across much of the heartland of America, bringing death and destruction.  315 people died that day and thousands more were injured.  Billions of dollars in property was leveled.  It has since been dubbed the super outbreak.  Nobody was prepared for it or expected it, but by the end of it, it would change the course of weather forecasting forever.

Back in those days, we did not have all of the sophisticated equipment or the super computers that we have today.  We did not have all the satellites in the sky either.  We were pretty much flying blind.  While there had been some research done on tornadoes, they were still very mysterious and no one really had a clue about their formation, or the conditions that caused them to form.  The radar being used was designed to spot enemy planes, not tornadoes.  The teletype machines could not type out all the warnings fast enough, nor could it prioritize tornado warnings over other forecasts.  As a result, warnings would go out after the fact.  These days changes all of that.



As a result of the massive loss of life and property, many pressed the government to take action.  Funding for the national weather service increased.  Grants to the scientific study of weather increased.  Scientists began going out into the field to study severe weather and tornadoes by observation.  NASA was involved in the effort putting satellites into orbit to monitor and measure the weather from space.  Computer companies lent their expertise to come up with more powerful computers to help predict, forecast, and warn the public.  An all out effort was made by all that in the last 40 years that has changed lead time from being after the fact to sometimes knowing days in advance of severe weather outbreaks and actual lead times in warnings of 20 minutes or more.

In April of 2011, on the 25th through the 28th, all of the learning and knowledge; all of the advancements in technology got put to the test.  Days in advance, computer modeling was showing that another super outbreak was about to occur.  It was one that would eclipse the 1974 record outbreak.  Over those 3 days there were 358 confirmed tornadoes across 21 US states.  There were 211 alone on the 27th.  324 people died as a result of those tornadoes.  While this is close to the same as 1974, the number of tornadoes was double.  We should have expected going on 800.  The 2011 storms seemed to hit much more populated areas as compared to 1974 as well. 

All of the technology worked.  All of the years of study and effort did pay off.  Lives were saved as a result.  There is still a lot we don't know about tornadoes.  Today we have an armada of researchers out there still trying to collect data that will help us further decode the tornado.  Some day it is hoped that we will be able to tell the difference between which storms only produce small tornadoes, and which ones will go on to produce those killer, massive EF 4s and 5s.