Tornado records

This article lists various tornado records. The most extreme tornado in recorded history was the Tri-State Tornado, which spread through parts of Missouri, Illinois, and Indiana on March 18, 1925. It is considered an F5, though tornadoes were not ranked on any scale in that era. It holds records for longest path length at 219 miles (352 km), longest duration at about 3½ hours, and fastest forward speed for a significant tornado at 73 mph (117 km/h) anywhere on Earth. In addition, it is the deadliest single tornado in United States history with 695 fatalities. It was also the third-costliest tornado in history at the time, but has been surpassed by several others non-normalized. When costs are normalized for wealth and inflation, it still ranks third today.

The deadliest tornado in world history was the Daulatpur–Saturia tornado in Bangladesh on April 26, 1989, which killed approximately 1,300 people. Bangladesh has had at least 19 tornadoes in its history kill more than 100 people, almost half of the total for the rest of the world.

For 37 years, the most extensive tornado outbreak on record, in almost every category, was the 1974 Super Outbreak, which affected a large area of the central United States and extreme southern Ontario in Canada on April 3 and April 4, 1974. Not only did this outbreak feature 148 tornadoes in only 18 hours, but an unprecedented number of them were violent; 7 were of F5 intensity and 23 were F4. During the peak of this outbreak there were 16 tornadoes on the ground at the same time. More than 300 people, possibly as many as 330, were killed by tornadoes during this outbreak. However, this record was later broken during the 2011 Super Outbreak, which resulted in 362 tornadoes and 324 tornadic fatalities.

The 2011 Super Outbreak was the most prolific tornado outbreak in United States history. It produced 362 tornadoes, with 218 of those in a single 24-hour period on April 27, including 11 EF4 and 4 EF5 tornadoes. 348 deaths occurred in that outbreak, of which 324 were tornado related. The outbreak helped smash the record for most tornadoes in the month of April with 772 tornadoes, almost triple the prior record (267 in April 1974). The overall record for a single month was 542 in May 2003, which was also broken.

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