The Tornado Super Outbreak of April 3-4 1974
By Erica Campbell on March 31, 2012, 4:04pm
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Soon, weather history will mark the anniversary of the Tornado Super Outbreak that occurred on April 3-4, 1974. Until last year, this was the worst day in recorded history for the outbreak of tornadoes. Scientists and meteorologists have studied what caused so many tornadoes to happen. One can only compare it (with all due respect to everyone affected) to baking a cake. You must have all the correct ingredients. If you miss one ingredient, nothing happens. But, if you have all the correct ingredients mixed together, it works. Such was the case of the Tornado Super Outbreak of 1974.
The forecast for April 3 -4 was mild at best. Showers were in the forecast for the East Coast, where as thunderstorms were forecast for the Midwest. However, Mother Nature had more in store. An unusually strong jet stream was moving in from the polar regions of Canada. This jet stream combined with a low pressure region and strengthened as it passed down over the Rocky Mountains, moving counterclockwise towards the east. This caused an enormous amount of warm, moist air to move into the Ohio River Valley from the Gulf of Mexico. However, as the low moved over the dry Midwest, it didn’t allow the warm, moist air it encountered to rise, which would have released its energy through normal thunderstorms. Instead, the air was trapped…baking under the sunlight all day. This would increase the upward movement and super-heat the air. Eventually, the atmosphere couldn’t contain this energy any longer. Something had to give. The result would be an unprecedented explosion of supercell thunderstorms, spawning an amazing number of tornadoes.
When all was said and done, April 3-4 would count 148 total tornadoes. Incredibly, six would be EF5…the most powerful tornadoes on the Enhanced Fujita Scale. There would also be 23 EF4, 35 EF3, 30 EF2, 31 EF1 and 23 EF0. The tornado outbreak would take 315 lives and leave over 5,000 injured. The path of destruction over 2,598 miles.
Scientists believed that this was a storm system that would take hundreds of years to reproduce…the conditions were so perfect. Sadly, they were wrong. Another super outbreak would occur on April 25-28, 2011. This time, there was an unbelievable 358 tornadoes, 207 in one day on April 27th. This outbreak would record four EF5 tornadoes; second most to the outbreak of 1974.
The questions remain; could this be repeated again? Could the same “perfect” conditions make for another super outbreak? With the populations of so many areas increasing and more and more people moving into areas which used to be farmland, does this only add to a tragedy waiting to happen? Scientists and meteorologists are racing against the clock, to try and find answers and learn the secrets of why tornadoes form, exploring why some supercells spawn a tornadoes and others do not.
Unfortunately, time is not on their side.
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