THE TORNADOES OF MARCH 18, 1925<sup>1</sup>

Henry, Alfred J.

doi:10.1175/1520-0493(1925)53<141:ttom>2.0.co;2

Cited by 6 publications

(5 citation statements)

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“…The Introduction includes significant discussion of earlier results from Henry (1925) and Changnon and Semonin (1966). It would seem appropriate to have a concise Introduction where re-examination of the tristate tornado is justified based on incomplete earlier work and the continued interest to understand longtracked tornadoes.…”

Section: Comments and Suggestionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This event is referred to as the Tri-State tornado because of three states being affected. The tornado's path length has been reported as 219 mi (352 km) by Henry (1925), which is the longest continuous track on record (Grazulis 1993). The tornado's approximate path is shown in Fig.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This situation would change little until after World War II (Galway 1992). The WB began severe-storm forecasting Henry (1925). Surface wind directions are indicated by red arrows; isotherms (10s of degrees F) are dashed lines; and isobars (in Hg, labeled with leading "2" not shown) are solid lines drawn at 0.05 in Hg (1.7 hPa) intervals.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The one paper published in the formal scientific literature regarding the Tri-State tornado was by Henry (1925), which appeared in the April 1925 issue of Monthly Weather Review 1 , shortly after the event. Henry's 1300 Central Standard Time (CST 2 , referred to by the WB in 1925 as "90 th meridian time") surface analysis is shown in Fig.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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

Maddox

Gilmore

Doswell³

et al. 2021

EJSSM

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Severe thunderstorms occurred across portions of the central United States on 18 March 1925. The deadly, long-track Tri-State tornado was the most publicized storm event of 18 March and remains the most significant single tornado in the nation’s history. There has been only one formal paper regarding the Tri-State tornado and its meteorological setting. Results are presented from a recent study of the event that was done drawing upon all relevant Weather Bureau data that could be obtained. The storms of 18 March were associated with a rapidly moving, synoptic cyclone that was not unusually intense. There appear to be no outstanding aspects of the meteorological setting that would explain the extreme character of the Tri-State tornado. Surface analyses indicate: a) the tornado was produced by a long-lived supercell that developed very near the center of the cyclone, possibly at the intersection of a warm front and a distinct dryline; b) the south-to-north temperature gradient ahead of the cyclone was very pronounced due to cooling produced by early morning storms and precipitation; c) the tornadic supercell tracked east-northeastward very rapidly at about 60 to 65 mph (~28 ms-1), moving farther away from the cyclone with time; and d) the storm remained very close to the surface warm front. Previous reports concerning the tornado and its setting had inaccurate surface analyses and surface pressures, and incorrectly stated that the tornado had formed in cold air well west of the surface cyclone. As the supercell and dryline moved rapidly eastward, the northward movement of the warm front kept the tornadic supercell within a very favorable storm environment for several hours. Apparently, this consistent, time and space concatenation of the supercell, the warm front, and the dryline for more than three hours was extremely unusual.

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Section: Comments and Suggestionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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

Maddox

Gilmore

Doswell³

et al. 2021

EJSSM

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“…The long-tracked 18 March 1925 ''Tri-State Tornado'' is the single deadliest tornado (695 fatalities) in U.S. history (Johns et al 2013). That tornado was originally associated with a damage pathlength of 352 km (219 mi) that occurred over a time span of 3.5 h (Henry 1925). 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).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

An Environmental Study on Tornado Pathlength, Longevity, and Width

Garner

Iwasko

Jewel

et al. 2021

Weather and Forecasting

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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.

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