26 Tornadoes Confirmed In Tuesday-Wednesday Outbreak, Second Most On Record



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Wow, what an event.  With a total of 26 tornadoes, this is the biggest April outbreak on record and the second biggest in any month (37, 6/2/1990).  I had discussed the chance of tornadoes in a previous post but I was not expecting something like this, especially since the storms had transitioned into a more linear mode by the time they moved in from Illinois.  In a counterintuitive twist, with the instability/shear parameters being very favorable for tornadoes, perhaps the linear nature helped this outbreak be so prolific since it was unfavorable for long-lasting circulations/single tornadoes? 

Where should this outbreak rank among the all-timers?  Most of the tornadoes were relatively brief with no real standout, although total damage is still likely to run into the millions of dollars.  26 is certainly an impressive number, but despite being the second biggest outbreak on record, there were no violent tornadoes and only 4 EF2's.  Part of the problem in trying to compare modern outbreaks to those in past years is that more tornadoes are documented nowadays.  This event had more documented tornadoes than the 1965 Palm Sunday Outbreak and even the Super Outbreak, but I can't possibly claim that this one should rank among those.  Any attempt to rank outbreaks should employ a more complete approach than just looking at raw count, but even then you're at the mercy of imperfect data.  The lack of a violent, long track or high-impact tornado will make this event a little less memorable, but make no mistake, this was an impressive day that deserves to be recognized and remembered for many years to come.

A few notable aspects of this outbreak:

- 18 out of 26 tornadoes occurred in the 75 minute window between 11:15 PM and 12:30 AM

- Dubois county had 5 tornadoes, tied for the most in any Indiana county in one day since records have been kept.

- Anti-photogenic to the extreme - we're going on 4 days and I still haven't seen any pictures/video of a single tornado (Illinois footage doesn't count!).


We now stand at 30 tornadoes for the year, which is already above average.  With an active pattern continuing for the forseeable future, we will probably add to this total in the coming days.  Stay tuned...