Percentage Of Tornado Fatalities By F/EF Scale Rating

For the list of dates that had killer tornadoes, click here

The chart below shows the breakdown of Indiana tornado fatalities by Fujita rating for tornadoes from 1950-2010.  As you can see, even relatively weak tornadoes pose a threat to life but fatalities increase noticeably for F/EF3 tornadoes and rapidly increase for violent F/EF4&5 tornadoes.  This makes sense given that even well-built structures generally experience total failure in violent tornadoes. 

Our breakdown is generally similar to the national breakdown of tornado fatalities.  I did not forget about F/EF0 tornadoes - it's just that we have not had a killer tornado of that magnitude.  However, it is important to note that this chart is likely not a perfect representation of tornado fatalities in part due to lack of detail in record keeping.  For example, say a F4 tornado killed 16 people.  The practice has been to attribute all 16 fatalities to the F4 tornado when in reality not all of the fatalities may have occurred in the F4 portion.  Still, there is a valuable message and it is that F/EF4&5 tornadoes are the biggest threat to life.