Meteorological Analyses of the Tri-State Tornado Event of March 1925

Maddox, Robert A.; Gilmore, Matthew S.; Doswell, Charles A.; Johns, Robert H.; Crisp, Charlie A.; Burgess, Donald W.; Hart, John; Piltz, Steven F.

doi:10.55599/ejssm.v8i1.46

Cited by 3 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 32 publications

(42 reference statements)

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Also of interest is the meteorological setting that would have produced such a long-track and violent tornado. That subject is not discussed in this paper, but is described in a companion study by some of the same authors (Maddox et al 2013).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 98%

1925 Tri-State Tornado Damage Path and Associated Storm System

Johns¹,

Burgess²,

Doswell³

et al. 2021

EJSSM

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The “Tri-State tornado” event of 18 March 1925, with an official death toll of 695 people, generally is accepted as the deadliest single tornado in United States recorded history. The officially accepted damage path is 352 km (219 mi) long. The entire damage path was not surveyed by the Weather Bureau in 1925 to determine if it truly was continuous, and the nature of the tornado event and the storm that produced it are not well known. Therefore, as much new data as possible have been gathered about this event in all three states along and near the purported damage path. Detailed information about the locations where damage was reported and the type of damage (recorded as “damage points”) was obtained from: interviews and driving surveys with first- and secondhand eyewitnesses, many local 1925 and later newspapers, local books, and photographs and other materials found in local libraries and genealogy centers. After plotting all damage points, a potential damage path of 378 km (235 mi) was indicated. However, 32 gaps ≥1.6 km (1 mi) appeared between consecutive damage points. This paper presents all the damage points, and indicates which of the gaps might be “real” (i.e., where one tornado ended and another tornado developed), as well as those gaps more likely to have been a continuous tornado. We speculate that path segments at the beginning of the potential damage path in eastern Shannon County, MO, and at the end of the potential path in central Pike County, IN, were both likely from separate tornadoes. In the very rural and hilly terrain of southeast Missouri, there were areas with a minimum of human development and no known witnesses to the tornado (parts of Reynolds, Iron and Madison Counties). This led to several relatively long damage path gaps >3.2 km (2 mi). The existence of relatively long gaps prevents confidence in the continuity of the first section of the path. Beginning in central Madison County, MO, and continuing to Pike County, IN, a distance of 280 km (174 mi), there are no gaps >3.2 km (2 mi), more strongly suggesting that the tornado was likely continuous for that path segment. Because of having the highest density of damage reports and the most eyewitness reports, the part of the main damage path that is 243 km (151 mi) long from central Bollinger County, MO to the west edge of Pike County, IN can be considered likely a continuous path. The tornado event was associated with what began as a classic supercell in Missouri, transitioning to high-precipitation mode in Illinois and Indiana. Witnesses saw a wedge tornado along most of the damage path and a large multivortex tornado in some areas. At two places in Illinois, a satellite tornado may have appeared at about the same time as the primary tornado was passing nearby. Another previously unreported tornado with a 32-km (20-mi) damage path occurred in Washington and Jackson Counties, IN, whose path and trajectory suggests that it may also have been produced by the same supercell. This new tornado started about 75 min later and about 105 km (65 mi) east-northeast of the apparent end of the Tri-State tornado damage path in Pike County, IN.

show abstract

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 98%

1925 Tri-State Tornado Damage Path and Associated Storm System

Johns¹,

Burgess²,

Doswell³

et al. 2021

EJSSM

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…However, Johns et al (2013) later identified 32 gaps in damage and concluded that there were two separate segments of 280 and 243 km (174 and 151 mi). In addition, an analysis by Maddox et al (2013) showed that the Tri-State Tornado was produced by a supercell with an estimated life-span of 7 h, which moved downstream along a surface warm front at ;26 m s 21 (50 kt). In contrast to that singular long-track storm, the 3-4 April 1974 ''Super Outbreak'' (Corfidi et al 2010) produced 25 F3-F5 tornadoes with pathlengths exceeding 40 km (25 mi) over a geographic area spanning from Michigan south to Mississippi and Alabama.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

An Environmental Study on Tornado Pathlength, Longevity, and Width

Garner

Iwasko

Jewel

et al. 2021

Weather and Forecasting

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

A dataset maintained by the Storm Prediction Center (SPC) of 6300 tornado events from 2009–2015, consisting of radar-identified convective modes and near-storm environmental information obtained from Rapid Update Cycle and Rapid Refresh model analysis grids, has been augmented with additional radar information related to the low-level mesocyclones associated with tornado longevity, path-length, and width. All EF2–EF5 tornadoes, in addition to randomly selected EF0–EF1 tornadoes, were extracted from the SPC dataset, which yielded 1268 events for inclusion in the current study. Analysis of that data revealed similar values of the effective-layer significant tornado parameter for the longest-lived (60+ min) tornadic circulations, longest-tracked (≥ 68 km) tornadoes, and widest tornadoes (≥ 1.2 km). However, the widest tornadoes occurring west of –94° longitude were associated with larger mean-layer convective available potential energy, storm-top divergence, and low-level rotational velocity. Furthermore, wide tornadoes occurred when low-level winds were out of the southeast resulting in large low-level hodograph curvature and near-surface horizontal vorticity that was more purely streamwise compared to long-lived and long-tracked events. On the other hand, tornado path-length and longevity were maximized with eastward migrating synoptic-scale cyclones associated with strong southwesterly wind profiles through much of the troposphere, fast storm motions, large values of bulk wind difference and storm-relative helicity, and lower buoyancy.

show abstract

Spatial and temporal analysis of the 27 April 2011 tornado outbreak in Central Alabama

Flynn

Islam

2018

GeoJournal

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Meteorological Analyses of the Tri-State Tornado Event of March 1925

Cited by 3 publications

References 32 publications

1925 Tri-State Tornado Damage Path and Associated Storm System

1925 Tri-State Tornado Damage Path and Associated Storm System

An Environmental Study on Tornado Pathlength, Longevity, and Width

Spatial and temporal analysis of the 27 April 2011 tornado outbreak in Central Alabama

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About