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Portal:Tornadoes

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The Tornadoes Portal

A tornado near Anadarko, Oklahoma, in 1999
Tornadoes are violently rotating columns of air that are in contact with the Earth and either a cumulonimbus or a cumulus cloud. Tornadoes are often referred to as twisters, whirlwinds, or cyclones. While most tornadoes attain winds of less than 110 miles per hour (180 km/h), are about 250 feet (80 m) across, and travel a few miles (several kilometers), the wind speeds in the most intense tornadoes can reach 300 miles per hour (480 km/h), are more than two miles (3 km) in diameter, and stay on the ground for dozens of miles (more than 100 km). Various types of tornadoes include the multiple vortex tornado, landspout, and waterspout. Other tornado-like phenomena that exist in nature include the gustnado, dust devil, fire whirl, and steam devil. Most tornadoes occur in North America (in the United States and Canada), concentrated in a region nicknamed the Tornado Alley. Tornadoes also occur in South America, South Africa, Europe, Asia, and Oceania.
Map of tornado warnings and confirmed tornadoes from the outbreak
There was a multi-day severe weather and tornado outbreak impacted the Southeastern and Mid-Atlantic United States from February 5–7. A powerful upper-level trough progressed eastward across the country, intersecting an abundant supply of moist air to produce severe weather. An eastward-propagating cold front supported a damaging squall line across the Southeast U.S. on February 5–6; supercell thunderstorms ahead of this line also produced numerous tornadoes. One EF1 tornado in the pre-dawn hours of February 6 killed one person in Demopolis, Alabama. On the morning of February 7, a secondary front progressed across Maryland and Virginia, unexpectedly leading to hundreds of damaging wind reports across Virginia, Maryland, Delaware, New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, Rhode Island, and Massachusetts. Five tornadoes were reported in the Washington, D.C., area, the most on record for a wintertime severe weather event. Across the three-day outbreak, 37 tornadoes were confirmed, including several that were strong and long-tracked. (Full article...)
List of selected tornado articles

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This is a list of all tornadoes that were confirmed by local offices of the National Weather Service in the United States in April 2010. (Full article...)
List of selected tornado lists

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An F3 tornado in Le Sueur County, Minnesota, on August 24, 2006.

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List of tornadoes by year

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2024 tornado activity

From the evening of May 16, 2024, to midday May 17, 2024, a derecho struck the Gulf Coast of the United States from Southeast Texas to Florida, causing widespread damage, particularly in the city of Houston and surrounding metropolitan area. At least seven people were killed by the storms, dubbed the Houston derecho by the National Weather Service, which brought winds up to 100 miles per hour (160 km/h). (Full article...)

Tornado anniversaries

June 8

  • 1953 – One of the deadliest single tornadoes in U.S. history, an F5 tornado devastated portions of Flint and Beecher, Michigan, killing 116 people and injuring 844. Homes were obliterated along a mile-long stretch of one road. This was the last single tornado in the United States to kill more than 100 people until the 2011 Joplin tornado.
  • 1966 – An F5 tornado tore through Topeka, Kansas, killing 16 people and injuring 450. About 820 homes were destroyed and 3,000 were damaged as entire neighborhoods were leveled. The cost of damage was estimated at $100 to $250 million, $939 to $2,348 million in 2023, making it one of the costliest tornadoes in U.S. history.
  • 1984 – Just after midnight, an F5 tornado damaged or destroyed 90% of Barneveld, Wisconsin, including a subdivision of new houses, which was obliterated. More homes were destroyed in and near Black Earth. Nine people were killed and about 200 were injured. Residents were awoken by a loud clap of thunder just a few minutes before the tornado struck.

June 9

  • 1953 – One day after the devastating F5 tornado in Flint, Michigan, an F4 tornado (possibly F5) devastated Worcester, Massachusetts and the nearby communities of Shrewsbury, Southborough, and Westborough, killing 94 people and injuring nearly 1,300. This was the third extremely deadly tornado to strike the United States in 1953; the high death tolls led to the development of a nationwide warning system.
  • 1984 – A devastating tornado outbreak struck the eastern Soviet Union. A tornado estimated at F5 intensity struck Ivanovo. There is considerable uncertainty about the death toll; with estimates ranging from 69 to over 400. A 320,000-kilogram (710,000 lb), was flipped and a 50,000-kilogram (110,000 lb), water tank was thrown 200 metres (660 ft) A second tornado near Kostroma may also have reached F5 intensity.

June 10

  • 1938 – A slow-moving F5 tornado approached Clyde, Texas and made a sudden turn, devastating the west side of town and killing 14 people. A group of nine homes "vanished." A family of six attempting to flee in their car were picked up; four of the occupants died and the two survivors were found half a mile (0.8 km) away.
  • 1958 – An F4 (possibly F5) tornado devastated the southwestern part of El Dorado, Kansas, destroying 200 homes and killing 15 people. A car was thrown 100 yards and crashed through the roof of a house.

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The following are images from various tornado-related articles on Wikipedia.

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A cumulative map of all tornadoes and tornado warnings throughout the outbreak

Accompanying Hurricane Katrina's catastrophic coastal impacts was a moderate tornado outbreak spawned by the cyclone's outer bands. The event spanned August 26–31, 2005, with 57 tornadoes touching down across 8 states. One person died and numerous communities suffered damage of varying degrees from central Mississippi to Pennsylvania, with Georgia sustaining record monetary damage for the month of August. Due to extreme devastation in coastal areas of Louisiana and Mississippi, multiple tornadoes may have been overlooked—overshadowed by the effects of storm surge and large-scale wind—and thus the full extent of the hurricane's tornado outbreak is uncertain. Furthermore, an indeterminate number of waterspouts likely formed throughout the life cycle of Hurricane Katrina.

The outbreak began with an isolated F2 over the Florida Keys on August 26; no tornadoes were recorded the following day as the storm traversed the Gulf of Mexico. Four weak tornadoes were observed on August 28 as the hurricane approached land, each causing little damage. Coincident with Katrina's landfall, activity began in earnest on August 29 with numerous tornadoes touching down across Gulf Coast states. Georgia suffered the greatest impact on this day, with multiple F1 and F2 tornadoes causing significant damage; one person died in Carroll County, marking the first known instance of a tornado-related death in the state during August. A record 18 tornadoes touched down across Georgia on August 29, far exceeding the previous daily record of just 2 tornadoes for the month throughout the state. Activity diminished over the subsequent two days as the former hurricane moved northward. Several more tornadoes touched down across the Mid-Atlantic states before the cessation of the outbreak just after midnight local time on August 31. (Full article...)

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The scope of WikiProject Severe weather is to write articles about severe weather, namely thunderstorms and tornadoes. Their talk page is located here.

WikiProject Weather is the main hub for all articles that are weather-related. WikiProject Weather strives to improve articles in a variety of weather topics, including Tropical Cyclones, Severe Weather, General meteorology, Non-tropical Storms, Climate, Floods, Droughts and wildfires, Meteorological instruments and data, Meteorological Biographies, and Space Weather. If you would like to help, please visit the project talk page.

WikiProject Meteorology is a collaborative effort by dozens of Wikipedians to improve the quality of meteorology- and weather-related articles. If you would like to help, visit the project talk page, and see what needs doing. The project is currently being merged into WikiProject Weather.

WikiProject Tropical cyclones is a daughter project of WikiProject meteorology. The dozens of semi-active members and several full-time members focus on improving Wikipedia's coverage of tropical cyclones.

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