On April 12, 1945, a
tornado outbreak occurred in the
Midwestern United States, producing numerous strong tornadoes and killing at least 128 people and injuring over 1,000 others; however, the
concurrent death of
President Franklin D. Roosevelt overshadowed news of the outbreak.
On July 5, 1945, the
United States Weather Bureau documented this entire outbreak as a single wind event, not a tornado or series of tornadoes, which killed 119 people and caused $2.65 million (1945 USD) in damage.
This report was later corrected on December 1, 1945, when the report was corrected to be a series of tornadoes.
J. L. Baldwin, a meteorologist at the
United States Weather Bureau office in Washington, D.C., later stated that, “these storms made April 12 the worst single day of tornado disaster
in the history of Oklahoma.”
Confirmed tornadoes
All ratings on the
Fujita scale were made by
Thomas P. Grazulis, a tornado expert, and are classified as unofficial ratings since official ratings for tornadoes began in 1950.
Grazulis only documented tornadoes he considered to be significant (F2+), so the true number of tornadoes for this outbreak is most likely higher. The
National Weather Service in
Norman, Oklahoma rated the Antlers, Oklahoma tornado F5 on the Fujita scale, which makes that tornado’s rating an official/unofficial rating, since it is a rating from the
National Weather Service before 1950.
See also
*
Tornado outbreak of February 12, 1945
On February 12, 1945, a devastating tornado outbreak occurred across the Southeastern United States. The storms killed 45 people and injured 427 others.
This outbreak included a devastating tornado that struck Montgomery, Alabama, killing 26 p ...
– A violent tornado outbreak exactly two months earlier
*
1999 Oklahoma tornado outbreak
The 1999 Oklahoma tornado outbreak was a significant tornado outbreak that affected much of the Central and parts of the Eastern United States, with the highest record-breaking wind speeds of . During this week-long event, 154 tornadoes touched ...
– Produced a violent
F5 tornado
The Fujita scale (F-Scale; ), or Fujita–Pearson scale (FPP scale), is a scale for rating tornado intensity, based primarily on the damage tornadoes inflict on human-built structures and vegetation. The official Fujita scale category is determ ...
over southern portions of Oklahoma City
*
List of North American tornadoes and tornado outbreaks
*
Tornado outbreak of May 18–21, 2013 – Generated
an EF5 tornado in the same area as the 1999 event
*
Tornado outbreak sequence of May 2003
The tornado outbreak sequence of May 2003 was a prolonged and destructive series of tornado outbreaks that affected much of the Great Plains and Eastern United States in early May 2003. Most of the severe activity was concentrated betwe ...
– Spawned
an F4 tornado that hit Tinker Air Force Base
Notes
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:1945-04-12 Tornado Outbreak
20th-century tornadoes
Tornado. 04-12
Tornadoes in Missouri
Tornado. 04-12
Tornadoes in Arkansas
Tornadoes in Illinois
Tornadoes in Oklahoma
April 1945 events in the United States