Wednesday, May 04, 2011
Tornado damage in Tuscaloosa, Alabama (photo: Dusty Compton, Tuscaloosa News/AP)
More than 350 tornadoes struck the southern United States from April 25 to April 28, making it the worst outbreak of its kind in the U.S. since records began being kept in 1860.
A total of 362 tornadoes touched down during the three-day period, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Most of them occurred in just one 24-hour period: 312 from the morning of April 27 to the morning of April 28.
The largest previous outbreak of tornadoes in one event occurred from April 3-4, 1974, with 148.
With 340 deaths in just 24 hours, April 27-28 became the deadliest single day for tornadoes since March 18, 1925, when a tornado outbreak killed 747 people across seven states.
A single tornado, dubbed the Tuscaloosa-Birmingham tornado, was 1.5 miles wide and traveled for 80 miles. It caused 65 deaths, the most by a single tornado since the one that killed 80 people in Kansas on May 25, 1955.
-Noel Brinkerhoff, David Wallechinsky
April 2011 Tornado Information (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration)
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