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Weather Encyclopedia

Historical Tornadoes

Tornadoes can occur at any time of the year and just about anywhere in the world. However, the unique geography of the United States has lent itself to a number of historical tornado outbreaks.

These are just some of the historical tornadoes that have devastated portions of the United States over the past years.

Largest Tornado Outbreaks

Tornado outbreaks are big clusters of tornadoes produced by the same weather system.  The largaest tornado outbreaks are usually associated with strong surface and upper-air weather systems that originated in the  middle latitudes, along cold fronts and warm fronts and especially the warm sector ahead of the cold front and south of the warm front.  The largest tornado outbreaks on record are:

170 - May 29,31, 2004 (16 states)

147 - April 3-4, 1974 (13 states)

138 - January 21-22, 1999 (9 states)

119 - May 3-4, 1999 (8 states)

110 - May 6-8, 2003 (15 states)

105 - November 21-23, 1992 (13 states)

101 - September 5-8, 2003 (6 states)

 

Tornadoes from Tropical Storms and Hurricanes

Tornado outbreaks are also sometimes spawned in bands of thunderstorms associated with landfalling tropical storms and hurricanes their remnants.  The largest of these on record are:

127 - Hurricane Ivan, September 15 - 17, 2004 (FL to PA)

115 - Hurricane Beulah, September, 1967 (TX)

106 - Hurricane Frances, September 4 8, 2004 (FL to MD)

 92 - Hurricane Rita, September 24 - 25, 2005 (LA, MS, AL, AR, TN)

 61 - Hurricane Andrew, August 26 - 28, 1992 (FL, GA, AL, MS, LA)

 58 - Hurricane Katrina, August 26 - 31, 2005 (FL, OH, PA)

 

 

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