These are some notable tornadoes, tornado outbreaks, and tornado outbreak sequences that have occurred in Africa.
Event | Date | Area | Tornadoes | Casualties | Notes |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Ndjamena tornado | 2 May 2007 | Ndjamena, Chad | 1 | 9 fatalities, 100 injuries | A rare tornado struck Ndjamena, destroying 50 homes and killing nine people. [1] |
Bebedjia tornado | 9 May 2007 | Bebedjia, Chad | 1 | 14 fatalities, >150 injuries; town was destroyed | An extremely rare and violent tornado tore through Bebedjia, reportedly destroying 95% of the town. The tornado struck at 4:00 pm, and was followed by an equally violent storm six hours later. [1] |
Event | Date | Area | Tornadoes | Casualties | Notes |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
2003 Yumbi tornado | 2 February 2003 | Yumbi, Democratic Republic of the Congo | 1 | 17 fatalities, 4,000 injuries | An extremely rare tornado swept through areas near the town of Yumbi. 1,700 families were made homeless by the tornado. [2] |
Event | Date | Area | Tornadoes | Casualties | Notes |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Roodepoort, South Africa | 26 November 1948 | Highveld, South Africa | 1 | 4 fatalities, 100 injuries | 700 homes wrecked, damages estimated at R150 million. This tornado made a track of 64 km and had touched down 15 times. [3] [4] |
Zastron, South Africa tornado | 26 November 1948 | Free State, South Africa | 1 | - | [ citation needed ] |
Albertynesville, South Africa tornado | 30 November 1952 | South Africa | - | 20 fatalities, 400 injuries | Cars were lifted 100 feet into the air by the tornado. [5] |
Paynesville, South Africa tornado | 2 December 1952 | South Africa | - | 11 fatalities | The tornado "threw cattle high into the air". [5] |
Trompsburg, South Africa tornado | 5 November 1976 | Karoo, South Africa | - | 5 fatalities | F3 rated tornado which tracked a 175 km long path, mainly through farmland. [6] [7] |
Senekal, South Africa tornado | 15 September 1988 | South Africa | - | 2 fatalities | F3 that tracked a 100 km path over mostly open farmland, killing two children and damaging power lines. [6] [7] |
Welkom, South Africa tornado | 20 March 1990 | Free State, South Africa | - | destroying 4000 homes | F4 Multi-vortex tornado raced through the suburbs of Welkom with a 240 km long severe storm front and a width of up to 1.7 km. Proved to be the most devastating tornado (in monetary terms) in South Africa's history. [4] |
Harrismith tornado | 15 November 1998 | Free State, South Africa | 1 | 0 fatalities, 14 injuries | F2 according to Weather Service. Several houses and three airplane hangars were damaged or destroyed. [8] |
Umtata (Mthatha)tornado | 15 December 1998 | Eastern Cape, South Africa | 1 | 18 fatalities, 150 injuries | Category unknown. Large amounts of damage was caused including damage to the hospital. Nelson Mandela, previous president of South Africa was in a pharmacy when the tornado hit, and was protected by his bodyguards while lying on the floor. The pharmacy was also damaged, but Mandela was not injured.3 days later Mandela declared Umtata in a state of emergency at Bridge Street taxi rank outside the shop that suffered 11 fatalities. [9] |
Mount Ayliff, South Africa tornado | 18 January 1999 | South Africa | - | 25 fatalities, 500 injuries | 120 km long track F4 [10] [4] |
Heidelberg, South Africa tornado | 21 October 1999 | South Africa | - | 20 injuries | 100+ km path narrowly missed Johannesburg [11] [12] |
Centurion tornado | 21 October 1999 | Gauteng, South Africa | 1 | unknown fatality, unknown injuries | F1 according to Weather Service. Damage was caused. [11] |
Mpumalanga, South Africa tornado outbreak | 9 September 2002 | Mpumalanga, South Africa | 4 | 2 fatalities[ citation needed ] | Strong line of storms. [13] Some buildings completely flattened[ citation needed ] |
Dullstroom tornado | 1 August 2006 | Mpumalanga, South Africa | 1 | 0 fatalities, 11 injuries | Several homes damaged, roof a high school completely removed. Estimated to be strong F1, possibly F2. [14] |
Vryheid tornado | 20 October 2006 | KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa | 1 | 0 | Rural huts destroyed on a farm 15 km east of the town. Child almost 'taken up' into tornado. Path estimated to be 4 km long. Estimated F1[ citation needed ] |
Klerksdorp tornado | 4 March 2007 | North West, South Africa | 1 | 1 fatality, 3 injuries | F0 (South African Weather Bureah classified it as a "mini tornado"). 200 houses and other buildings damaged. [15] |
Molweni tornado | 14 November 2008 | KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa | 1 | 8 fatalities, 200 injuries | Crossed an urban area. Cars rolled some distance and shipping containers hurled through the air over 200m. Mud huts completely scoured away. Brick houses levelled. Path estimated to be 10 km long. Estimated EF3-4. [16] |
Bulwer tornado | 6 November 2009 | KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa | 1 | 1 fatality[ citation needed ], 66 injuries | F3 according to Weather Service. Cars thrown and cinder brick homes flattened. 178 homes were destroyed. [17] |
Ficksburg tornado | 3 October 2011 | Free State, South Africa | 1 | 1 fatality, 42 injuries | F2 according to Weather Service. 122 houses and shacks destroyed. [18] |
Duduza tornado | 3 October 2011 | Gauteng, South Africa | 1 | 1 fatality, 166 injuries | F2 according to Weather Service. 150 houses destroyed [19] |
Bronkhorstspruit tornado | 13 November 2011 | Mpumalanga, South Africa | 1 | 0 fatalities, 0 injuries | Category unknown. Minimal damage due touching down in open fields. [20] |
Bethlehem tornado | 23 June 2012 | Free State, South Africa | 1 | 8 fatalities, 27 injuries | F2. Several houses was destroyed in Bethlehem and Kestell areas [21] |
Deneysville tornado | 23 June 2012 | Free State, South Africa | 1 | 1 fatality, 5 injuries | a lot of damage to waterfront property. [22] |
Queenstown – Mthaha tornado | 19 September 2013 | Eastern Cape, South Africa | 1 | - | [ citation needed ] |
Tembisa | 26 July 2016 | Gauteng, South Africa | 1 | 0 fatalities, 3 injuries | Damaged roof of Phumulani Mall and a nearby hospital, causing injuries. [23] |
Mpumalanga, Standerton | 10 December 2016 | Mpumalanga, Standerton, South Africa | 1 | 0 fatalities | Spotted about 12 km outside Standerton on the R23 Volksrust Road [24] [25] |
Mpumalanga Standerton | 11 December 2016 | Mpumalanga, Standerton, South Africa | 1 | 0 fatalities | Seen in the Kaalspruit/Bloukop Area [26] |
Vaal Marina | 11 December 2016 | Gauteng, South Africa | 1 | 0 fatalities, +-50 injuries | At least 300 people were displaced and 50 others injured [27] |
New Hanover | 12 November 2019 | KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa | 1 | 2 fatalities, +-18 injuries | Hundreds of people were displaced. [28] [29] |
A tornado is a violently rotating column of air that is in contact with both the surface of the Earth and a cumulonimbus cloud or, in rare cases, the base of a cumulus cloud. It is often referred to as a twister, whirlwind or cyclone, although the word cyclone is used in meteorology to name a weather system with a low-pressure area in the center around which, from an observer looking down toward the surface of the Earth, winds blow counterclockwise in the Northern Hemisphere and clockwise in the Southern. Tornadoes come in many shapes and sizes, and they are often visible in the form of a condensation funnel originating from the base of a cumulonimbus cloud, with a cloud of rotating debris and dust beneath it. Most tornadoes have wind speeds less than 180 kilometers per hour, are about 80 meters across, and travel several kilometers before dissipating. The most extreme tornadoes can attain wind speeds of more than 480 kilometers per hour (300 mph), are more than 3 kilometers (2 mi) in diameter, and stay on the ground for more than 100 km (62 mi).
A supercell is a thunderstorm characterized by the presence of a mesocyclone; a deep, persistently rotating updraft. Due to this, these storms are sometimes referred to as rotating thunderstorms. Of the four classifications of thunderstorms, supercells are the overall least common and have the potential to be the most severe. Supercells are often isolated from other thunderstorms, and can dominate the local weather up to 32 kilometres (20 mi) away. They tend to last 2–4 hours.
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 thunderstorm that is capable of producing a tornado. Modern weather surveillance technology such as Doppler weather radar allow for early detection of rotation in a thunderstorm, and for subsequent warnings to be issued before a tornado actually develops. It is nevertheless still not uncommon that warnings are 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. In particular, a tornado can develop in a gap of radar coverage, of which there are several known in the United States.
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 301 ± 20 mph (484 ± 32 km/h). During this week-long event, 154 tornadoes touched down. More than half of them were on May 3 and 4 when activity reached its peak over Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska, Texas, and Arkansas.
An extremely devastating and deadly tornado outbreak sequence impacted the Midwestern and Northeastern United States at the beginning of June 1953. It included two tornadoes that caused at least 90 deaths each—an F5 tornado occurring in Flint, Michigan, on June 8 and an F4 tornado in Worcester, Massachusetts, on June 9. These tornadoes are among the deadliest in United States history and were caused by the same storm system that moved eastward across the nation. The tornadoes are also related together in the public mind because, for a brief period following the Worcester tornado, it was debated in the U.S. Congress whether recent atomic bomb testing in the upper atmosphere had caused the tornadoes. Congressman James E. Van Zandt (R-Penn.) was among several members of Congress who expressed their belief that the June 4th bomb testing created the tornadoes, which occurred far outside the traditional tornado alley. They demanded a response from the government. Meteorologists quickly dispelled such an assertion, and Congressman Van Zandt later retracted his statement.
The 1990 Plainfield tornado was a devastating tornado that occurred on the afternoon of Tuesday, August 28, 1990. The violent tornado killed 29 people and injured 353. It is the only F5/EF5 rated tornado ever recorded in August in the United States, and the only F5 tornado to strike the Chicago area. There are no known videos or photographs of the tornado itself; however, in 2011, a video surfaced online showing the supercell that spawned the tornado. The Plainfield tornado was part of a small outbreak that produced several tornadoes in the Northern United States and Ontario and Kansas.
A waterspout is an intense columnar vortex that occurs over a body of water. Some are connected to a cumulus congestus cloud, some to a cumuliform cloud and some to a cumulonimbus cloud. In the common form, a waterspout is a non-supercell tornado over water having a five-part life cycle: formation of a dark spot on the water surface; spiral pattern on the water surface; formation of a spray ring; development of a visible condensation funnel; and ultimately, decay.
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.
A funnel cloud is a funnel-shaped cloud of condensed water droplets, associated with a rotating column of wind and extending from the base of a cloud but not reaching the ground or a water surface. A funnel cloud is usually visible as a cone-shaped or needle like protuberance from the main cloud base. Funnel clouds form most frequently in association with supercell thunderstorms, and are often, but not always, a visual precursor to tornadoes. Funnel clouds are visual phenomena, these are not the vortex of wind itself.
Tornadoes have been recorded on all continents except Antarctica. They are most common in the middle latitudes where conditions are often favorable for convective storm development. The United States has the most tornadoes of any country, as well as the strongest and most violent tornadoes. A large portion of these tornadoes form in an area of the central United States popularly known as Tornado Alley. Canada experiences the second most tornadoes. Ontario and the prairie provinces see the highest frequency. Other areas of the world that have frequent tornadoes include significant portions of Europe, South Africa, Philippines, Bangladesh, parts of Argentina, Uruguay, and southern and southeastern Brazil, northern Mexico, eastern and western Australia, New Zealand, and far eastern Asia.
The Southern Ontario tornado outbreak of 2005 was a series of thunderstorms on the afternoon of August 19, 2005, that spawned tornadoes damaging homes in the Conestoga Lake, Fergus, and Tavistock areas. A tornado was reported within the Toronto city limits, although this was never officially confirmed by the Meteorological Service of Canada. The storms morphed into heavy rain cells when reaching Toronto. The Insurance Bureau of Canada has estimated that insured losses were the highest in the province's history, exceeding 500 million Canadian dollars, two and a half times that of Ontario's losses during the 1998 ice storm and the second largest loss event in Canadian history until another event of torrential rain of July 8, 2013.
This page documents the tornadoes and tornado outbreaks of 1999, primarily in the United States. Most tornadoes form in the U.S., although some events may take place internationally, particularly in parts of neighboring southern Canada during the Northern Hemisphere's summer season, as well as Europe. One particular event, the Bridge Creek-Moore, Oklahoma F5 tornado, produced the highest wind speed ever recorded on Earth, which was 301 ± 20 mph (484 ± 32 km/h).
This page documents the tornadoes and tornado outbreaks of 2011. Extremely destructive tornadoes form most frequently in the United States, Bangladesh, Brazil and Eastern India, but they can occur almost anywhere under the right conditions. Tornadoes also appear regularly in neighboring southern Canada during the Northern Hemisphere's summer season, and somewhat regularly in Europe, Asia, and Australia.
The 2011 Goderich, Ontario tornado was an F3 tornado generated by an isolated supercell which unexpectedly tore across Huron County, Ontario, Canada on the afternoon of Sunday, August 21, 2011. Beginning as a tornadic waterspout over Lake Huron, the tornado ripped through the lakeside town of Goderich severely damaging the historic downtown and homes in the surrounding area. One person died and 37 more were injured as a result. This was the strongest tornado to hit Ontario in over fifteen years, since the April 20, 1996, tornado outbreak in Williamsford, Arthur, and Violet Hill.
This page documents the tornadoes and tornado outbreaks of 2013. Strong and destructive tornadoes form most frequently in the United States, Bangladesh, Brazil and Eastern India, but they can occur almost anywhere under the right conditions. Tornadoes also appear regularly in neighboring southern Canada during the Northern Hemisphere's summer season, and somewhat regularly in Europe, Asia, and Australia.
This page documents notable tornadoes and tornado outbreaks worldwide in 2016. Strong and destructive tornadoes form most frequently in the United States, Bangladesh, Brazil 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, and Australia. Tornadic events are often accompanied with other forms of severe weather, including strong thunderstorms, strong winds, and 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.
A destructive and deadly outbreak of 17 tornadoes occurred on February 9–10, 1959, mostly during the overnight hours, causing widespread destruction in the Midwest and Southeast regions of the United States. The strongest of the outbreak was a violent F4 tornado which tore through Northwestern Downtown St. Louis. An F3 tornado also caused heavy damage to numerous structures in Southern Highland County, Ohio, including a school that was in session at the time the tornado hit. Overall, the outbreak caused 21 fatalities, 358 injuries, and $53.713 million in damage. Non-tornadic impacts also caused two more fatalities, and at least 70 more injuries.
This page documents notable tornadoes and tornado outbreaks worldwide in 2021. 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.
This page documents notable tornadoes and tornado outbreaks worldwide in 2022. 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.