A tornado warning is a public warning that is issued by weather forecasting agencies to an area in the direct path of a tornado, or a severe thunderstorm capable of producing one, and advises individuals in that area to take cover. Modern weather surveillance technology such as Doppler weather radar can detect rotation in a thunderstorm, allowing for early warning before a tornado develops. They are also commonly issued based on reported visual sighting of a tornado, funnel cloud, or wall cloud, typically from weather spotters or the public, but also law enforcement or local emergency management. When radar is unavailable or insufficient, such ground truth is crucial. In particular, a tornado can develop in a gap of radar coverage, of which there are several known in the United States.
A severe thunderstorm warning is a type of public warning for severe weather that is issued by weather forecasting agencies worldwide when one or more severe thunderstorms have been detected by Doppler weather radar, observed by weather spotters, or reported by an emergency management agency, law enforcement, or the general public. Unlike a watch, a warning is issued to areas in the direct path of active severe thunderstorms, that are expecting a direct impact typically within an hour. Severe thunderstorms can cause property damage and injury due to large hail, high winds, and flooding due to torrential rainfall. The exact criteria to issue a warning varies from country to country.
The 1985 United States–Canada tornado outbreak, referred to as the Barrie tornado outbreak in Canada, was a major tornado outbreak that occurred in Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York, and Ontario, on May 31, 1985. In all 44 tornadoes were counted including 14 in Ontario, Canada. It is the largest and most intense tornado outbreak ever to hit this region, and the worst tornado outbreak in Pennsylvania history in terms of deaths and destruction.
Portions of Lubbock, Texas, were struck by a powerful multiple-vortex tornado after nightfall on May 11, 1970, resulting in 26 fatalities and an estimated $250 million in damage. It was in its time the costliest tornado in U.S. history, damaging nearly 9,000 homes and inflicting widespread damage to businesses, high-rise buildings, and public infrastructure. The tornado's damage was surveyed by meteorologist Ted Fujita in what researcher Thomas P. Grazulis described as "the most detailed mapping ever done, up to that time, of the path of a single tornado." Originally, the most severe damage was assigned a preliminary F6 rating on the Fujita scale, making it one of only two tornadoes to receive the rating, alongside the 1974 Xenia tornado. Later, it was downgraded to an F5 rating. The extremity of the damage and the force required to displace heavy objects as much as was observed indicated that winds produced by vortices within the tornado may have exceeded 290 mph (470 km/h).
The tornado outbreak of April 6–9, 1998 was a large tornado outbreak that started on April 6 across the Great Plains and ended on April 9 across the Carolinas and Georgia. A total of 62 tornadoes touched down from the Middle Atlantic States to the Midwestern United States and Texas. The outbreak is infamous for producing a deadly F5 that tore through the suburbs of Birmingham, Alabama, killing 32 people. The Birmingham tornado was one of only two F5 tornadoes that year. The other hit in Lawrence County, Tennessee, on April 16, as part of the same outbreak as the Nashville F3 tornado. This tornado outbreak was responsible for 41 deaths: 7 in Georgia and 34 in Alabama.
During the evening hours of March 28, 2000, a powerful F3 tornado struck Downtown Fort Worth, Texas, causing significant damage to numerous buildings and skyscrapers as well as two deaths. The tornado was part of a larger severe weather outbreak that caused widespread storms across Texas and Oklahoma in late-March, spurred primarily by the moist and unstable atmospheric environment over the South Central United States as a result of an eastward-moving upper-level low and shortwave trough. The tornado outbreak was well forecast by both computer forecast models and the National Weather Service, though the eventual focal point for the severe weather—North Texas—only came into focus on March 28 as the conditions favorable for tornadic development quickly took hold.
Goderich is a town in the Canadian province of Ontario and is the county seat of Huron County. The town was founded by John Galt and William "Tiger" Dunlop of the Canada Company in 1827. First laid out in 1828, the town is named after Frederick John Robinson, 1st Viscount Goderich, who was prime minister of the United Kingdom at the time. It was incorporated as a town in 1850.
This page documents notable tornadoes and tornado outbreaks worldwide in 2006. Strong and destructive tornadoes form most frequently in the United States, Bangladesh, and Eastern India, but they can occur almost anywhere under the right conditions. Tornadoes also develop occasionally in southern Canada during the Northern Hemisphere's summer and somewhat regularly at other times of the year across Europe, Asia, Argentina, Brazil and Australia. Tornadic events are often accompanied with other forms of severe weather, including strong thunderstorms, strong winds, and hail.
The heat wave of 2006 derecho series were a set of derechos — severe winds with powerful thunderstorms — that occurred on July 17–21, 2006. The first storms hit a wide swath of north-central and northeastern North America that stretched from the Upper Midwest through much of Ontario and into the northeastern United States. Another round struck the middle Mississippi River Valley, including two derechos that hit St. Louis, Missouri. The storms left more than three million people without power, some more than once and some for weeks.
The tornado outbreak sequence of June 3–11, 2008 was a series of tornado outbreaks affecting most of central and eastern North America from June 3–11, 2008. 192 tornadoes were confirmed, along with widespread straight–line wind wind damage. Seven people were killed from a direct result of tornadoes; four in Iowa, two in Kansas, and one in Indiana. Eleven additional people were killed across five states by other weather events including lightning, flash flooding, and straight-line winds. Severe flooding was also reported in much of Indiana, Wisconsin, Minnesota and Iowa as a result of the same thunderstorms, while high heat and humidity affected much of eastern North America; particularly along the eastern seaboard of the United States from New York City to the Carolinas.
The Southern Ontario Tornado Outbreak of 2009 was a series of severe thunderstorms that spawned numerous tornadoes in Southwestern Ontario, Central Ontario and the Greater Toronto Area (GTA) on August 20, 2009, and was the largest single-day tornado outbreak in Ontario history and the largest in Canadian history. During the afternoon and evening, 19 tornadoes touched down with four of them producing F2 damage. One F2 struck the town of Durham where significant damage occurred and one person was killed; two F2s struck the city of Vaughan, just north of Toronto, damaging hundreds of homes; another F2 devastated apple orchards and resort areas near Thornbury. The number of tornadoes associated with this event surpasses that of August 2, 2006, which saw 18 documented tornadoes. In addition, it was one of the most destructive and costly tornado events ever in the province, and included one fatality, one of only a handful of deadly tornadoes in Ontario's recent memory. At one point, over 10 million people in Southern Ontario, one-third of Canada's population, were placed under tornado watches and/or warnings as the storms rolled through.
This page documents the tornadoes and tornado outbreaks of 2010. The majority of tornadoes form in the U.S., but they can occur almost anywhere under the right conditions. A lesser number occur outside the U.S., most notably in parts of neighboring southern Canada during the Northern Hemisphere's summer season, but are also known in South America, Europe, Asia, and Australia.
The June 2010 Northern Plains tornado outbreak was one of the most prolific summer tornado outbreaks in the Northern Great Plains of the United States on record. The outbreak began on June 16, with several tornadoes in South Dakota and Montana. The most intense storms took place the following day across much of eastern North Dakota and much of Minnesota. The system produced 93 tornadoes reported across four states while killing three people in Minnesota. Four of the tornadoes were rated as EF4 on the Enhanced Fujita scale, the most violent tornadoes in a 24-hour period since there were five within 15 hours in the 2008 Super Tuesday tornado outbreak. This was the region's first major tornado outbreak of the year and one of the largest on record in the region, comparable to a similar outbreak in June 1992. The 48 tornadoes that touched down in Minnesota on June 17 marked the most active single day in the state's history. June 17 was the second largest tornado day on record in the meteorological summer, behind the most prolific day of the 2003 South Dakota tornado outbreak on June 24, 2003.
From April 14–16, 2011, a tornado outbreak, among the largest recorded tornado outbreaks in U.S. history, produced 178 confirmed tornadoes across 16 states, resulting in severe destruction on all three days of the outbreak. A total of 38 people were killed from tornadoes and an additional five people were killed as a result of straight-line winds associated with the storm system. The outbreak of severe weather and tornadoes led to 43 deaths in the Southern United States. This was the largest number of fatalities in an outbreak in the United States since the 2008 Super Tuesday tornado outbreak. It is locally referred to as the "Forgotten Outbreak" in Alabama as it was vastly overshadowed by the 2011 Super Outbreak less than two weeks later.
The 2011 Super Outbreak was the largest, costliest, and one of the deadliest tornado outbreaks ever recorded, taking place in the Southern, Midwestern, and Northeastern United States from April 25 to 28, 2011, leaving catastrophic destruction in its wake. Over 175 tornadoes struck Alabama, Mississippi, and Tennessee, which were the most severely damaged states. Other destructive tornadoes occurred in Arkansas, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, New York, and Virginia, with storms also affecting other states in the Southern and Eastern United States. In total, 367 tornadoes were confirmed by NOAA's National Weather Service (NWS) and Government of Canada's Environment Canada in 21 states from Texas to New York to southern Canada. Widespread and destructive tornadoes occurred on each day of the outbreak. April 27 was the most active day, with a record 223 tornadoes touching down that day from midnight to midnight CDT. Four of the tornadoes were rated EF5, which is the highest ranking on the Enhanced Fujita scale; typically these tornadoes are recorded no more than once a year.
From April 13 to 16, 2012, a major tornado outbreak occurred across a large portion of the Great Plains. The storms resulted in six tornado-related fatalities, all of which occurred as a result of a nighttime EF3 tornado that caused major damage in and around Woodward, Oklahoma. Numerous other tornadoes occurred, including a violent EF4 tornado that passed near Marquette, Kansas, and an EF3 that caused major damage in Wichita.
The tornado outbreak sequence of May 2019 was a prolonged series of destructive tornadoes and tornado outbreaks affecting the United States over the course of nearly two weeks, producing a total of 400 tornadoes, including 53 significant events (EF2+). Eighteen of these were EF3 tornadoes, spanning over multiple states, including Nebraska, Kansas, Texas, Missouri, Oklahoma, Indiana, Iowa, and Ohio, with additional tornadoes confirmed across a region extending from California to New Jersey. Two EF4 tornadoes occurred, one in Dayton, Ohio, and the other in Linwood, Kansas. Four tornadoes during this outbreak were fatal, causing a total of eight fatalities. The deadliest of these occurred on May 22 near Golden City, Missouri, where an EF3 tornado took three lives, including an elderly couple in their eighties. The damaging series of tornadoes that occurred in Indiana and Ohio on the evening of May 27 during this event is sometimes locally referred to as the Memorial Day tornado outbreak of 2019, which became the fourth costliest weather event in Ohio history. The near continuous stream of systems also produced to widespread flash and river flooding, along with damaging winds and large hail.
This page documents notable tornadoes and tornado outbreaks worldwide in 2020. Strong and destructive tornadoes form most frequently in the United States, Argentina, Brazil, Bangladesh, and eastern India, but can occur almost anywhere under the right conditions. Tornadoes also develop occasionally in southern Canada during the Northern Hemisphere's summer and somewhat regularly at other times of the year across Europe, Asia, Argentina, Australia and New Zealand. Tornadic events are often accompanied by other forms of severe weather, including strong thunderstorms, strong winds, and hail. There were 1,243 preliminary filtered reported tornadoes in 2020 in the United States in 2020, and 1,086 confirmed tornadoes in the United States in 2020. Worldwide, at least 93 tornado-related deaths were confirmed with 78 in the United States, eight in Vietnam, two each in Canada, Indonesia, and Mexico, and one in South Africa.
On the afternoon of March 3, 2019, a violent and long-tracked EF4 tornado struck portions of eastern Alabama and western Georgia, causing extreme damage along its path. This tornado was the deadliest tornado in the United States since the 2013 Moore tornado, killing 23 and injuring 97. This tornado was part of a larger tornado outbreak that affected the Southeastern United States on this same day. This outbreak produced numerous tornadoes across Alabama and Georgia. This was the deadliest and strongest tornado of this outbreak, and the 8th deadliest in Alabama state history.
