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© History Oasis
This list of famous tornadoes showcases some of the most devastating and remarkable twisters in recorded history.
The Tri-State tornado of March 18, 1925 was the deadliest tornado in U.S. history, killing 695 people and injuring over 2,000 as it carved a devastating 219-mile path across Missouri, Illinois, and Indiana.
This monster storm, which at times reached over a mile wide and may have had wind speeds exceeding 300 mph, completely destroyed several towns, killed 33 students in a single school, and was so powerful it reportedly ripped railroad tracks from the ground and rolled a multi-ton coal tipple.
The 1965 Palm Sunday tornado outbreak was one of the deadliest tornado events in U.S. history, producing 55 tornadoes across six states on April 11-12, 1965 and killing 266 people.
Multiple "double/twin funnel" tornadoes were observed, including the famous pair near Elkhart, Indiana that were captured on film striking a trailer park and subdivision within an hour of each other.
The 1974 Super Outbreak was the most violent tornado outbreak ever recorded, producing 148 tornadoes across 13 U.S. states and Ontario, Canada over a 24-hour period on April 3-4, 1974.
It spawned 30 F4 or F5 tornadoes, including seven F5s, with one tornado in Monticello, Indiana traveling a staggering 121 miles—the longest path length of any tornado in the outbreak.
The 1991 Andover tornado outbreak produced 55 tornadoes across the Great Plains on April 26-27, including a devastating F5 tornado that struck Andover, Kansas, killing 17 people.
A research team measured 268 mph winds in a tornado near Red Rock, Oklahoma using mobile Doppler radar—the first time F5-level winds had ever been directly measured in a tornado
The 2013 Moore tornado was a catastrophic EF5 tornado that struck Moore, Oklahoma on May 20, 2013, killing 24 people and injuring over 200 others.
It completely destroyed Plaza Towers Elementary School, killing 7 children, and reached peak winds estimated at 210 mph, making it one of the strongest tornadoes ever recorded. The tornado caused an estimated $2 billion in damage, destroying over 1,100 homes along its 17-mile path through populated areas.
The 2011 Joplin tornado was a catastrophic EF5 tornado that struck Joplin, Missouri on May 22, 2011, killing 158 people and injuring over 1,150 others.
It reached estimated peak winds of up to 250 mph, making it one of the strongest tornadoes ever recorded, and that it caused $2.8 billion in damage, making it the costliest single tornado in U.S. history. The mile-wide tornado destroyed or damaged over 8,000 buildings along its 22-mile path, including completely leveling a large hospital.
The 2013 El Reno tornado was an exceptionally large and powerful EF3 tornado that struck El Reno, Oklahoma on May 31, 2013.
It reached a record-breaking width of 2.6 miles, making it the widest tornado ever recorded, and it killed four storm chasers, the first known deaths of storm chasers in history. The tornado also produced extreme winds up to 296 mph as measured by mobile radar, among the highest wind speeds ever recorded on Earth.
The 1936 Tupelo-Gainesville tornado outbreak was one of the deadliest in U.S. history, producing two separate tornadoes that each killed over 200 people in Tupelo, Mississippi and Gainesville, Georgia on April 5-6.
The Tupelo F5 tornado, which killed at least 216 people, counted one-year-old Elvis Presley and his parents among its survivors, while in Gainesville, about 70 people were killed when the Cooper Pants Factory collapsed and caught fire in what remains the worst tornado-caused death toll in a single building in U.S. history.
The 1953 Waco tornado outbreak produced at least 33 tornadoes across 10 U.S. states from May 9-11, killing 144 people.
The F5 tornado that struck Waco, Texas killed 114 people and destroyed 196 businesses, disproving a local legend that the city's geography made it immune to tornadoes, and that at the Cooper Pants Factory in Gainesville, Georgia, about 70 people were killed when the building collapsed and caught fire, marking the worst tornado-caused death toll in a single building in U.S. history.
The 1953 Flint–Worcester tornado outbreak sequence produced at least 50 tornadoes across the Midwestern and Northeastern United States from June 7-9, killing 251 people.
It included an F5 tornado that struck Flint, Michigan on June 8, killing 116 people and becoming one of the deadliest tornadoes in U.S. history, and an F4 tornado that hit Worcester, Massachusetts on June 9, killing 94 people and becoming the deadliest F4 tornado on record.
The Daulatpur-Saturia tornado that struck Bangladesh on April 26, 1989 was long considered the deadliest tornado in recorded history, with an estimated 1,300 deaths and 12,000 injuries.
The tornado's path of destruction was so complete that it leveled every structure within a 6 square kilometer area, leaving 80,000 people homeless and prompting a local newspaper to report that aside from some tree skeletons, there were no signs of any standing structures left in its wake.
The 1999 Bridge Creek–Moore tornado was an exceptionally powerful F5 tornado that devastated parts of Oklahoma on May 3, 1999, killing 36 people directly and causing $1 billion in damage.
It produced the highest wind speed ever recorded on Earth at 321 mph (517 km/h), as measured by a mobile Doppler radar.
The 2011 Tuscaloosa–Birmingham tornado was a violent EF4 multiple-vortex tornado that devastated parts of Alabama on April 27, 2011, killing 64 people and causing $2.4 billion in damage.
The tornado threw a 35.8-tonne (78,925 lb) coal car 391 ft (119 m) through the air, demonstrating its incredible destructive power.
The Greensburg, Kansas tornado of May 4, 2007 was a devastating EF5 tornado that destroyed 95% of the town, killing 11 people and causing $250 million in damage.
The tornado was 1.7 miles wide—wider than the entire city of Greensburg itself—and had estimated wind speeds of up to 205 mph.
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