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🌪️ Tornado Talk Updates!

Get ready Storm Chaser Patreon members (and higher tiers) - The Guin narrative is still on track to come out on April 15. We will review the work with the members and some of our contributors and then release a standalone digital version followed by a Kindle version. We hope to have those versions out by end of May/early June. Our overview of the event will remain Free.

🌪️ This Week In Tornado History

April 14, 2012 - Kansas: Per the Storm Prediction Center, 83 tornadoes occurred on this day. Just over half of them (42) were in the state of KS. The strongest tornado for the day was one of the 42: It was an EF4 that traveled through parts of Rice, Ellsworth, McPherson and Saline Counties. Total path length was 50.28 miles. The max width was 400 yards. There were no injuries and no fatalities reported.The EF4 damage was found near Kanopolis Lake in Ellsworth County.

April 15, 1879 - Texas: An F2 tornado passed through Lisbon, TX, 7 miles SSW of Dallas. 15 homes were destroyed and six were damaged. The twister was described as a “green rimmed cone that rose and fell in its motion like a monster wave.” 25 people were injured. Newspapers at the time do reports loss of life from this event.

April 16, 1939 - Louisiana:  A tornado given an F4 rating moved from SW of Haynesville, LA to the NW part of the town. 40 homes were destroyed. 8 people were killed. They occurred in six different homes in the “Dawson” subdivision. 50 people were injured.

April 17, 1963 - Illinois/Indiana: An F4 tornado traveled 70 miles from NW of Essex, IL to just west of Medaryville, IN on this day in 1963. Per Thomas Grazulis in Significant Tornadoes, “In Illinois, damage was near-F5 as several houses literally vanished.” 70 were injured and there was 1 fatality. From Jim Alsopp, retired Warning Coordination Meteorologist at the NWS Chicago. “A 24 year old woman, who had just adopted a baby, was running across the yard, possibly to get in a ditch, with her baby in her arms, when she was struck by debris and killed. She was the tornado’s only fatality. She was found with the baby still cradled in her arms. The baby survived.”

April 18, 1877 - Tennessee: An F4 tornado “moved E, passing 1m S of Newburg, 9m N of Columbia, 12m SE of Nashville, and eventually passing through and ripping apart the town of La Vergne. Damage was reported as very intense in valleys and less intense on hilltops.” Thomas Grazulis documents 10 fatalities and 50 injuries.

April 19, 2000 - Kansas: An F3 tornado tracked for 34 miles through Montgomery, Labette, and Neosho Counties in Kansas. Parsons was hit hard, with 30 square blocks being destroyed and 30-35 people were injured.

April 20, 1973 - Oklahoma: A bit after midnight, an F3 tornado moved through parts of Pontotoc County, OK including the town of Ada. The path length was 7.9 miles, the width 100 yards and there were 21 injuries. A mobile home park was hit. A phonograph record was embedded in a vertical position in a utility pole.

🌪️ More Tornado Information

41 tornadoes have occurred in the NWS Paducah County Warning Area in 2025! Here is a graphic from them showing the paths and more record-breaking information!

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