1974-04-03/04: IL, IN, MI, OH, TN, KY, etc Super Outbreak

[Darrin Rasberry]

This is "the big one," and we all know about it, but I am curious to hear in specific from those who may have had the opportunity to chase/spot in these areas at this time, or who have heard stories from those chasing or spotting, to get a chasing perspective on what it was like to be around this 148 tornado monster. I would also like to know the gritty on the setup for the day ... I remember reading somewhere that CAPE was only in the triple digits/~1000 j/kg but that the shear was ridiculous. Looking forward to a good convo to learn even more about this day!

 

[Perry Williams]

At the time, I was only twelve so obviously didn't do any spotting or chasing.....but just from what I saw and heard via local tv and radio storm/ weather reports, knew it was one heck of a tornadic event here in north Georgia. Ironically due to my age and limited technology at the time (no cable tv, no internet, etc), I didn't learn about the tornado catastrophe's in Alabama, middle Tennessee, Kentucky, or points farther north until the next evening (network news covering Brandenburg and Xenia).

As for the atmospheric parameters which spawned the superoutbreak, I'm certain CAPE had to be very high, at least over the Tennessee and north Alabama activity; surface dewpoints reached 70 as far north as southern Tennessee. Here west of Atlanta, it was an extremely oppressive, muggy late afternoon and overnight; definitely "tornado weather" as area old timers would say.

Here's an interesting read on the superoutbreak and many other historical tornado outbreaks. Per this website and others I've researched, surface CAPE reached 3400 across the Alabama and Tennessee tornado affected areas; lift indices were as high as -12 in north Alabama....and -8 to -10 as far north as central Indiana/ western Ohio.

http://bangladeshtornadoes.org/UScases.html

 

[Chris Sokol]

Here is a nice page from the Huntsville, Alabama NWS site on this event in the Tennessee Valley Region:

http://www.srh.noaa.gov/hun/April1974/index.php

The overall stats from this day are amazing...

Number of tornadoes: 148, including 24 F4s and 6 F5s
States affected: 13
Number of fatalities: 335
Number of injuries: 6100+
Number of buildings destroyed/major damage: 13000+
Total damage path length: 2500 miles

 

[Angie Norris]

I didn't chase this event, but I was on the disaster team that responded to the F1 near Knoxville, TN. We had 2 killed (a set of one month old twins), and I believe 12 injured as the tornado demolished a small trailer park. The tornado formed on top of a ridge line and dropped into the valley at approximately 11:30pm, then lifted as it topped the ridgeline on the opposite side of the valley.
I spoke with Dr. Forbes about the tornado a couple of years ago at the convention, and he remembered being with Dr. Fujita as he did the damage survey on the tornado.

 

[cdcollura]

Good day all,

I came across this quite a while back and figured I'd post the link to it here. Apparently a pilot had an encounter with the Ohio supercell that was not for the faint of heart...

http://www.xeniatornado.com/pilot.htm

An excerpt from this site (based on Homer G. Ramby's site and from an to him email by Robert Schwarts) is also below...

"On april 3 1974 I was flying in a twin engine airplane which when we left Louisville Kentucky. (actually from Haps airport in Jeffersonville In. ) we studied the weather and found it strange. We delayed our trip for about one and one/half hours before deciding to go ahead and go up to Mad River Ohio to install a radio in an airplane so we could fly it back to Jeffersonville for repairs. We were almost to Cincinnati when everything went crazy. the instruments went crazy and the lights went out. we were blind as It turned pitch-black outside and the plane actually started flying backwards and we could feel ourselves being bounced to the overhead and then thrown to the dash then back against the seat. We had no control of the plane. Our radio was nothing but noise and we could not get through to the Cincinnati airfield. Our transponder was out also. Finally the air control answered our emergency call and had us make a try at turning 90 degrees after we maintained some control of the plane. They said there was so much debris in the air they could not find us. Finally they had us make another turn and they said that they thought they had us. It was still pitch black and we could not see anything. They maneuvered us several times and confirmed they had us. They told us to make a 90 and corrected us as our instruments meant nothing. They told us to continue as fast as we could to our destination. They said to drop in altitude several times and finally after following their directions they said we should see the end of the runway (NOW) and sure enough we broke through the clouds and we were 10 feet off the runway when we broke through the blackness. As we landed we rushed to the hanger and tied the plane down. 5 Minutes later the radio announced that the tornado was tearing through Xenia Ohio. This was quite a trip and hope that anyone caught in a tornado like that has the opportunity to tell his tale. I was very lucky. My Brothers business In Louisville was hit bad and he was almost wiped out. What an EXPERIENCE.. Survivor of one of the most harrowing experiences."

His entire site on the Ohio storms in 1974 is also at: http://www.xeniatornado.com.

 

[Nick Smith]

The other day, I found this webpage that has airchecks from WHAS radio in Louisville. The 4/3/74 section has about 8 hours worth of high quality audio (mp3) files of their coverage of the event. It begins somewhere around 5:30 PM EDT when the warnings were issued around the Louisville area and ends later in the night.

http://www.lkyradio.com/WHASairchecks.htm#1970s

The interesting part for me was listening to the tornado warnings as the came out. It was common for a single warning to contain multiple counties. Certain areas were under warnings more than once, especially in the Louisville and Cincinnati areas.

 

[Dennis Dennison]

I lived in Toledo, Oh in a Mobile home at the time. If you remember back then you could tune the TV to channel 2 ( I think) and if the "FUZZ"" became a narrow band in the middle it meant a tornado was closely. Well I was outside, and there was a massive tall storm rolling in- I had never seen such a tall storm, soon it began to storm big time, the wind began to blow very hard, and the lightning was the most extreme I had ever seen. I saw the TV shrink down, the lightning became so severe and fast I thought for sure it was going to come inside through a window. the wind was so high that everything in the open field behind the house was laying flat. At this point the rain and hail were blowing horizontally. I actually laid down in the living room floor and dug my fingers deep into the carpet as I fully expected the trailer to go airborne. The entire home was shaking and vibrating and it was loud. So eventually the storm passed, and even though there was no tornado, it was intense

 

[Kevin Walters]

I lived in Toledo, Oh in a Mobile home at the time. If you remember back then you could tune the TV to channel 2 ( I think) and if the "FUZZ"" became a narrow band in the middle it meant a tornado was closely. Well I was outside, and there was a massive tall storm rolling in- I had never seen such a tall storm, soon it began to storm big time, the wind began to blow very hard, and the lightning was the most extreme I had ever seen. I saw the TV shrink down, the lightning became so severe and fast I thought for sure it was going to come inside through a window. the wind was so high that everything in the open field behind the house was laying flat. At this point the rain and hail were blowing horizontally. I actually laid down in the living room floor and dug my fingers deep into the carpet as I fully expected the trailer to go airborne. The entire home was shaking and vibrating and it was loud. So eventually the storm passed, and even though there was no tornado, it was intense

Back in the 60's a guy named Newton Weller claimed you could detect a nearby tornado by using your television set. I'm sure many of you are familiar with the story. I believe Weller said if you warmed up your set (tubes in those days) and turned it to channel 2 and darkened the screen to black, a nearby tornado would cause the screen to glow bright white.

 

[Keith Wilson]

I was 9 years old living in Paducah and my fascination with the weather was still merely a flicker. I certainly don't remember much about that particular day in my childhood, but there were very few days that I can remember when my Dad was noticably nervous about the weather.
My Dad was one of those that never seemed to pay much attention to the weather, but that didn't mean that he was dumb about it either. I have read a lot about this event since then and I am convinced that this is one of them Dad was nervous about. It appears that of the worst of it occurred after the system was east of us in weastern KY.

 

[Bob Hartig]

The other day, I found this webpage that has airchecks from WHAS radio in Louisville. The 4/3/74 section has about 8 hours worth of high quality audio (mp3) files of their coverage of the event. It begins somewhere around 5:30 PM EDT when the warnings were issued around the Louisville area and ends later in the night.

http://www.lkyradio.com/WHASairchecks.htm#1970s

The interesting part for me was listening to the tornado warnings as the came out. It was common for a single warning to contain multiple counties. Certain areas were under warnings more than once, especially in the Louisville and Cincinnati areas.

That is an exceptionally cool link, Nick. Thanks for providing it. I thought I'd seen pretty much everything available online on the Super Outbreak, but this is new to me.

 

[Kevin Walters]

It was very interesting to listen to the live communication with the NWS office in Louisville. The fact that an earthquake occurred in the area during the peak tornado activity is amazing.

 

[Bob Hartig]

I noticed the announcement of the earthquake, too. Talk about weird!

It's sobering to hear how the event developed, with the newscaster delivering solid warnings but not sounding particularly concerned, moving to a sense of increased urgency that set in as first the weather bureau staff at Standiford Field took shelter, and then reports of the tornado's progress through the town filtered in, including that of the helicopter newscaster.

Interesting was the advice to listen for the sound of the tornado, which, the public was told, would be "quite loud" and an unmistakable warning. Anyone on this forum who's chased knows what bad advice that was.

I'm presently listening to part IV. It's absolutely fascinating to get a sense of how Louisville responded even as new storms began to threaten the area.

 

[Kevin Walters]

Something else that is very apparent is how we have become used to instant/live coverage of severe weather just about anywhere in the country. There was an active tornado warning in effect for the Louisville area with the report(s) of a tornado. There was a period of time in which no information was available about the exact location of the tornado even though it was moving through a metropolitan area.

 

[Nick Smith]

Here's some radar pictures I've collected over the years:

From the Cincinnati WSR-57 radar (including the Xenia hook echo):














Views of the Xenia cell from the Wright-Patterson AFB radar (CPS-9):






Xenia cell from the WHIO-TV radar



Monticello storm viewed from the Marseilles, IL radar:

 

[Donovan Gruner]

Thank you for sharing those, Nick. Those are some amazing pieces of weather history.