148 Tornadoes in 18 Hours

Summary

HISTORY This Week - Episode 148: Tornadoes in 18 Hours

Release Date: March 31, 2025
Host/Author: The HISTORY® Channel | Back Pocket Studios

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1. Introduction to the 1974 Super Outbreak

The episode delves into one of the most significant weather events in American history—the Tornado Super Outbreak of April 3, 1974. This catastrophic event saw 148 tornadoes sweeping across 12 U.S. states and even impacting Ontario, Canada, marking it as the largest tornado outbreak at the time.

Sally Helm sets the stage by highlighting the unprecedented nature of the outbreak:

"It is at that point the largest tornado outbreak in the nation's history." ([04:39])

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2. Personal Story: The Alexander Family in Gwinn, Alabama

The narrative begins with the Alexander family seeking shelter in their basement during the impending storm. Betty and Branford Alexander, along with their pregnant daughter, son-in-law, and grandchildren, hunker down as the family prepares for the worst.

When Branford goes upstairs to check on the situation, the power fails:

"Just as he reaches the top of the basement steps, coming back to join them, the electricity goes out." ([03:08])

Minutes later, the family experiences the terrifying force of the tornado:

"They could feel a terrible pressure in their ears... it felt to Betty like they were in there three or four minutes. But she later learned it was just 16 or 17 seconds." ([03:17])

Miraculously, no one was injured, but their home was utterly destroyed. The family's ordeal mirrors the experiences of countless others across the affected regions.

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3. Meteorological Background: Greg Forbes and Dr. Ted Fujita

Greg Forbes, a graduate student specializing in meteorology, was under the mentorship of the renowned Dr. Ted Fujita, often referred to as "Mr. Tornado" for his extensive research in severe weather. In the days leading up to the outbreak, forensic meteorologists like Forbes were grappling with limited technology:

"Meteorologists used relatively crude radar technology to basically get a picture of the growing storm." ([11:32])

Despite the challenges, Forbes and Fujita's team were dedicated to understanding and predicting such catastrophic events.

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4. The Day of the Outbreak: Progression and Impact

As the storm system intensified, meteorologists across the nation observed the perfect conditions for tornadoes:

"Above them, cold air sat on top of the hot moist air near the ground, which meant that conditions were ripe for a big thunderstorm." ([19:05])

Tornadoes began forming rapidly, overwhelming existing warning systems. The manual process of issuing alerts led to delays, resulting in many residents not receiving timely warnings.

Sally Helm recounts the devastation:

"The tornadoes on April 3rd tore through homes, farms, businesses with winds stronger than an atomic blast. They snapped centuries-old trees like toothpicks." ([20:18])

The aftermath was dire, with estimates of damage reaching up to $4 billion, over 300 fatalities, and 6,000 injuries. The sheer scale of destruction underscored the need for advancements in meteorological science and emergency response.

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5. Scientific Advances Post-Outbreak

In the wake of the Super Outbreak, significant strides were made in understanding tornado dynamics and improving predictive technologies. Dr. Ted Fujita introduced the concept of microbursts—small, intense downdrafts of air that can significantly impact weather patterns.

"Dr. Fujita spotted some damage patterns on the ground that didn't look like tornado patterns... it led him to begin to hypothesize that there were some of these narrow little, what he called microbursts." ([25:17])

These insights were later validated during the JFK Airport crash in June 1975, where microbursts were identified as the cause, bolstering Fujita's theories. Consequently, weather radar technology advanced, allowing for more precise detection and tracking of tornadoes:

"Today we can see tornadoes much more clearly... in color, which helps us understand the severity of the storm." ([27:10])

Additionally, communication systems were overhauled. The introduction of specific weather radios and, eventually, smartphone alerts ensured that warnings reached the public more swiftly, enhancing overall safety.

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6. Conclusion: Legacy and Improvements in Tornado Prediction

The Super Outbreak of 1974 was a turning point in meteorology, prompting critical advancements that have saved countless lives since. Greg Forbes reflects on the evolution of weather prediction:

"But the advances we've made came about partly as a result of this huge 1974 storm." ([27:25])

Modern forecasting boasts unparalleled accuracy and lead times, enabling authorities to issue timely warnings and mobilize resources effectively. While tornadoes remain a formidable natural threat, the lessons learned from the 1974 outbreak continue to inform and enhance current meteorological practices.

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Notable Quotes

• Professor Jeff Trapp on the significance of the Super Outbreak:

  "It was a monumental event in terms of allowing us to get from where we were then to where we are now." ([27:02])

• Sally Helm on technological advancements:

  "Now we can see tornadoes coming sooner, give people more notice." ([27:25])

• Greg Forbes on improved forecasting:

  "We're in a much better position now when it comes to tornado warnings." ([27:54])

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Final Thoughts

Episode 148 of HISTORY This Week provides a compelling blend of personal narratives and scientific exploration, illustrating how a single day's events can reshape entire fields of study and public safety protocols. Through interviews with experts like Greg Forbes and Professor Jeff Trapp, listeners gain an in-depth understanding of both the human and scientific facets of the 1974 Super Outbreak, highlighting the enduring impact of this historical moment.

For more insights into pivotal moments that have shaped our world, visit historythisweekpodcast.com and subscribe to HISTORY This Week wherever you get your podcasts.

Transcript

[Ben]

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[Sally Helm]

Channel original podcast history this week, April 3, 1974 Sally I'm Sally Helm. It's evening in Gwinn, Alabama and the Alexander family has been holed up in their basement for hours. Betty and Branford Alexander are sitting with their pregnant daughter and son in law and grandchildren. Branford's elderly mom is in a rocking chair. There's a storm raging outside and they know there might be a tornado coming. After a while, Branford goes upstairs to check on things and Then Betty hears.

[Greg Forbes]

Him yell, everyone needs to take cover in the basement.

[Sally Helm]

Just as he reaches the top of the basement steps, coming back to join them, the electricity goes out.

[Greg Forbes]

The family makes their way to a back closet with a flashlight.

[Sally Helm]

Then they hear breaking glass and the roar of a storm. Betty later recounts the story to a writer named Charles Jordan. She says they could feel a terrible pressure in their ears and the kids were crying and there was the sound from outside of trees falling on the house. It felt to Betty like they were in there three or four minutes. But she later learned it was just 16 or 17 seconds. When it's over, she says, it seemed as if we had lost our hearing and everyone was confused. But they're okay. No one in the family has been hurt. One of her daughters goes out to sweep up the broken glass. Many of the Alexanders are barefoot. And then they walk upstairs. It's a scene of devastation. One family member puts it simply, the house is gone. This is a scene playing out all across Alabama and across 12 other US states. A group of some 33 thunderstorms hit.

[Greg Forbes]

Today and have caused an unprecedented outbreak of nearly 150 tornadoes.

[Sally Helm]

It is at that point the largest tornado outbreak in the nation's history.

[Professor Jeff Trapp]

It was the first outbreak that was so bad that we gave it a special name, Super Outbreak. It set the benchmark for just how bad things could get today.

[Sally Helm]

The tornado super outbreak of 1974. Why did so many deadly tornadoes hit on this one day? And how did it spur life saving changes that are still with us decades later?

[Ben]

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[Greg Jackson]

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[Sally Helm]

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[William Goudge]

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[Sally Helm]

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[Sally Helm]

Results may vary based on input. Check responses for accuracy Scientists who study the weather are kind of in the business of predicting the future. When Greg Forbes was a kid, he thought this seemed magical. What the weatherman said changed the way he and his family lived their lives.

[Professor Jeff Trapp]

If it was a sunny day, my mother would hang clothes outside on a clothesline to dry instead of using the dryer. I figured that, well, I can go and make forecasts and people can use those to plan their daily lives.

[Sally Helm]

So when he grows up, he studies meteorology at Penn State and at the University of Chicago, and eventually he gets especially interested in severe weather. It's nice to know about sunny days so that you can hang your laundry out, but knowing when a tornado is coming can save your life. Forbes would go on to serve as severe weather expert for the weather channel for 20 years. We also talked to another meteorologist for this story, Professor Jeff Trapp. He teaches atmospheric science at the University of Illinois, and he remembers his mom used to take severe weather predictions really seriously.

[William Goudge]

My late mother. I used to tell her that I blamed or thanked her for this because when I was a kid, whenever there were any kind of hints of severe storm events Would immediately be ushered down into the basement and told to stay into the basement until everything was over. And so I told her that I wanted to know what I was missing.

[Sally Helm]

So he grew up to study storms, including tornadoes. Now he knows exactly what they are.

[William Goudge]

By definition, a tornado is a violently rotating column of air in contact with the ground.

[Greg Forbes]

A tornado comes along with a thunderstorm.

[Sally Helm]

You've seen these thunder, lightning, and often wind. If that wind gets going in just the wrong way, A thunderstorm can start spinning. And if that happens, it can sometimes cause a tornado. That column of rotating air that extends down out of the clouds. Professor trapp told us they don't always look like that spinning gray funnel you might imagine.

[William Goudge]

Sometimes the funnels are fairly transparent because they haven't picked up much debris. Sometimes they're relatively narrow, Especially during the latter stages of the tornado. And sometimes they have a shape of wedges and stovepipes. And meteorologists give all kinds of names to them.

[Sally Helm]

Now, not all tornadoes are created equal. Some of them don't cause much damage at all.

[Greg Forbes]

But if the winds become really strong.

[Sally Helm]

Then tornadoes can tear buildings apart. They can also pick up objects right off the ground and carry them along in the air. Greg forbes told us Worcester tornado in.

[Professor Jeff Trapp]

Massachusetts in 1953 is reported to have dropped the mattress into the boston harbor down along the Florida panhandle. There's been one report that I have seen. I can't vouch for all of these, but they're in the reports of an alligator falling out of the sky.

[Sally Helm]

Oh, my gosh.

[Greg Forbes]

Cars, farm animals, mobile homes can be swept up in a tornado and dropped a ways away.

[Sally Helm]

Sometimes this causes strange, fantastical occurrences like alligators falling out of the sky. But of course, it can also be really dangerous, Even deadly. Back in 1974, we could detect and predict these dangerous storms, but the technology for doing that wasn't great.

[Greg Forbes]

Meteorologists used relatively crude radar technology to basically get a picture of the growing storm.

[Professor Jeff Trapp]

Those days, all you could get were blobs of white color, Basically showing where the storm was and the shape of the precipitation pattern.

[Sally Helm]

It often looked like a little fish hook or a little swirl, and there.

[Professor Jeff Trapp]

Were a lot of those on April 3, 1974.

[Sally Helm]

It isn't uncommon for tornadoes to occur in groups as an outbreak, Because a spinning thunderstorm can easily cause multiple tornadoes, and that's what's popping up on the radars. In April of 1974, Greg Forbes at this time, Was a graduate student studying tornadoes. He was working under a meteorologist named Dr. Ted Fujita. Fujita was known in the field as.

[Professor Jeff Trapp]

Mr. Tornado because he had done so many studies. He was intense, he was meticulous. He was a workaholic. He seemingly worked 24 hours a day.

[Sally Helm]

But even if you had to work hard, being on Fujita's team was like being in the popular crowd of tornado scientists. It was where you wanted to be. They were working on things like how you measure the strength of a tornado. They came up with something called the F scale, which we still use today. And Forbes loved the work. But in April 1974, his future on Dr. Fujita's team was unclear. There hadn't been a major tornado in years, and Fujita's funding was dwindling. So on April 3, Forbes was actually in an interview for another job to study hurricanes.

[Professor Jeff Trapp]

And in the middle of that interview, in came Ed Perot, one of our meteorologists. And he said, it's already interrupt, but you might want to see this. Come to the roof. There's a rotating thunderstorm that's right over the building. And so going opposite to what we tell the public to do, we all ran to the roof instead of to the basement. And indeed there was rotating thunderstorm there. Hail then fell to the size of golf balls, and Dr. Fujita had his wife collect some of that to have a cocktail on the rocks later in the evening.

[Sally Helm]

At this point, it wasn't clear just how bad the storm was going to be, but scientists are definitely expecting some kind of tornado activity on this day.

[Greg Forbes]

There's a dangerous storm system moving eastward across the central part of the United States.

[Sally Helm]

So after they run up to the roof, these meteorologists go back down to their office to follow the weather.

[Professor Jeff Trapp]

Watching the weather maps, watching the teletype, listening to the radio, watching television to see accounts of the tornadoes coming in. It's kind of like a sports player getting, you know, the. Getting nervous tension before the big game. This was a big game for the meteorologists.

[Sally Helm]

Weather scientists all across the country are tracking these storms. Forbes had seen that potentially dangerous storm in Chicago, and there were also really intense thunderstorms building in places like Georgia and Tennessee.

[Greg Forbes]

As the day goes on, storms develop in Indiana, Alabama and elsewhere.

[Sally Helm]

The weather conditions are perfect for tornadoes because of the way temperature is working and the way the wind is blowing. And indeed, scientists in these states begin to see those telltale hook shapes popping up on their radar. They immediately try to get the word out to the public so that they can take cover.

[Greg Forbes]

The people working at the weather station will run to a teletype, which is basically a typewriter.

[Professor Jeff Trapp]

We're clickety clacking out at about 80 characters per second, I guess one line at a time. Clickety clack, next line, next line. And so it took probably a minute to type out one of these warnings. The problem was that with so many storms in the same area, the warnings got backlogged.

[Sally Helm]

At the other end of the teletype were television and radio stations waiting to keep the public informed.

[Professor Jeff Trapp]

It was kind of a manual procedure. Somebody had to rip that sheet off the teletype and hand it to the disc jockey. And he'd read the tornado warning. Severe thunderstorm warning has been changed to a tornado warning. He's just been picking up numerous reports.

[Sally Helm]

But it's a slow process and so not everyone gets the word. Plus, many of the communication systems soon become overwhelmed because over the course of.

[Greg Forbes]

About 18 hours, 147 tornadoes will hit in the United States and one just over the border in Canada.

[Sally Helm]

Around dinner time that day, Dr. Fujita's team in Chicago gets a call from the head of the National Severe Storms Prediction center who tells him, you guys are going to need to do some damage surveillance tomorrow because what appears to.

[Professor Jeff Trapp]

Be an historic tornado outbreak is in progress.

[Sally Helm]

People all across the country are bracing against this, the storm, and many of them are about to get hit.

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[Sally Helm]

Taxes, tips and fees extra on April 3. Meteorologists are watching this storm with their radar and getting the word out with their teletypes. But for a lot of regular people on the ground, this starts out as a pretty ordinary afternoon. In towns across northern Alabama, for example, a lot of people would have just felt hot. It was humid with mid summer temperatures, even though just a few days earlier it had been freezing. People are probably complaining about this as they hole up in air conditioned rooms.

[Greg Forbes]

And meanwhile above them, cold air sat on top of the hot moist air near the ground, which meant that conditions were ripe for a big thunderstorm.

[Sally Helm]

As people head home from work, they can see those storms building in the sky sky. And all day long they've been hearing tornado warnings and alerts. Some people take them seriously, but others probably think, eh, we've heard all this before. Betty Alexander and her family in Gwyn are definitely keeping tabs on the weather. They'd been on the edge of a big tornado in Gwyn back in 1956, so they know these things can be serious. They cook dinner and then hunker down in the basement until the tornado hits. As the Alexanders shelter in that back closet, they're having an experience that families all across the country are having tonight.

[Professor Jeff Trapp]

You could hear the debris hitting the buildings and then you could hear the tearing apart of the buildings. It doesn't just immediately tear apart the whole building. It's sort of a cascade of failure takes the roof off and then the walls begin to collapse or get broken down.

[Greg Forbes]

The tornadoes on April 3rd tore through homes, farms, businesses with winds stronger than an atomic blast. They snapped centuries old trees like toothpicks.

[Sally Helm]

They crushed one of the world's largest power plants, which was located in Alabama on the Tennessee River. One news reporter saw the tornado from his car. He jumped out and hid in a roadside ditch. He later described the storm, quote, it was like something out of the Old Testament, a pillar of clouds, black, majestic and ominous. Professor Trapp told Us it would have been for many people like nothing they'd ever seen before.

[William Goudge]

These tornadoes are rare and so there are very few people who would have seen these at that point. And I think that would have been quite frightening to anyone seeing this.

[Sally Helm]

There are reports in Indiana of two by fours dropping from the sky. Some towns get hit by more than one tornado.

[Professor Jeff Trapp]

These were the kind of tornadoes that just were going to turn ordinary buildings into rubble. The foundations were swept clean. The house was just individual chunk sized pieces of wood that were were tossed sometimes a half mile or more downstream from where the building had been. So it was a nightmare for the people, that's for sure.

[Sally Helm]

The Alexander family in Gwyn emerges from the basement to see that their house has been destroyed. Thankfully they're all okay. But soon a neighbor comes running over to them saying that a little boy has been blown into the Alexander's yard and he needs help. They carry him to the couch in the basement. His face is covered in dirt and blood. They clean him up as best they can and he's okay. But his mother and his aunt, they soon learn, have been killed. All night, rescue squads are coming through Gwyn trying to help the wounded. Sirens are sounding all across the US.

[Greg Forbes]

By the time the sun rose on the morning of April 4,148 tornadoes had landed spreading from Michigan and western Ontario down through states in the Midwest and Southeast, even as far as New York.

[Sally Helm]

Estimates of the damage vary, but some place the number as high as $4 billion. Over 300 people were killed and some 6,000 were injured. It was a historic outbreak, the first to be called a super outbreak. The next morning, people begin the hard work of putting their lives back together. And meanwhile, meteorologists like Greg Forbes still have a job to do.

[Professor Jeff Trapp]

Dr. Fujita told the students and staff that everyone should come in early the next morning and we would have to charter some high winged small aircraft to fly around in to document it.

[Greg Forbes]

There's a lot they can learn from documenting the damage.

[Sally Helm]

After a day of prep, Dr. Fujita.

[Greg Forbes]

Splits everyone into teams. Forbes and the two other graduate students go up in a small plane with a pilot. None of the students had done this.

[Professor Jeff Trapp]

Kind of work before, so it was baptism by fire if you will. Here we've got what turns out to be the worst tornado outbreak in United States history at the time. And we have to sort of try to document it before they get out there with the bulldozers and start cleaning everything up.

[Sally Helm]

The students try to map a tornado's path by following its tracks.

[Professor Jeff Trapp]

Some of it was pretty easy to see. It was over these fields of corn stubble and you could see the path marks and of course, you could see the debris where it hit buildings.

[Sally Helm]

They're flying at practically a 45 degree angle so that the photographer can get good photos. It's a little harrowing. In fact, one of the students starts to feel. So they have to make a quick emergency landing on a grass landing strip to settle his stomach. And once they're there, the pilot says.

[Professor Jeff Trapp]

Boy, it's kind of soggy down here and boy, there's a barn and power lines down at the end. So he says, well, boys, I'm not sure we're going to be able to take off. We're pretty heavy with four people in this plane. Are we going to go for it or are we going to call a tow truck? We all looked at each other and there wasn't a one of us. We'd have sooner died at that point than have to call Dr. Fujita and tell him that on this first day out of our historic tornado damage survey, that we weren't going to be able to do our mission.

[Sally Helm]

They take off again, clear those power lines by about three feet.

[Professor Jeff Trapp]

It probably, in retrospect, was an even more harrowing flight than than it seemed like at the time, but it was an adventure.

[Sally Helm]

And the damage surveys do yield some interesting data.

[Professor Jeff Trapp]

Dr. Fujita spotted some damage patterns on the ground that didn't look like they were tornado patterns. It looked like the air was coming down and then fanning outward in kind of a starburst outward pattern that wasn't.

[Sally Helm]

A classic tornado damage pattern. People thought of tornado wind as going up and in, not down and out.

[Professor Jeff Trapp]

And so it led him to begin to hypothesize that there were some of these narrow little, what he called microbursts.

[Greg Forbes]

These are small downbursts of air that we now know often come along with thunderstorms. And Dr. Fujita thinks it might be that these microbursts help trigger the start of more tornadoes. During this super outbreak, not everyone agreed with that reading of the evidence. Some people didn't think microbursts existed.

[Professor Jeff Trapp]

But then, not very long after the super outbreak, along came a crash at JFK Airport in New York in June 75. And the airline asked him to investigate that. And he looked at the data and sure enough, he was able to detect these little puffs of microburst downdrafts that were coming down to the ground.

[Sally Helm]

He believed these microbursts caused the crash. And later data helped prove it so.

[Greg Forbes]

That original data from the 1974 tornado.

[Sally Helm]

Outbreak helped lead to discoveries that had.

[Greg Forbes]

A big impact on pilot how to.

[Sally Helm]

Detect and avoid microbursts. Since that crash in 1975, there's only been one recorded crash in the US where microbursts played a role. The super outbreak also had a big impact on weather science.

[Professor Jeff Trapp]

It was a monumental event in terms of allowing us to get from where we were then to where we are now.

[Sally Helm]

The super outbreak helped spur funding and research that ended up really advancing things like radar technology. Today we can see tornadoes much more clearly. They're not just those white blobs on the screen anymore, but now we can.

[Greg Forbes]

See the whole rotating storm with much more clarity and in color, which helps us understand the severity of the storm.

[Sally Helm]

And we can see tornadoes coming sooner, give people more notice. The 1974 tornadoes also helped lead to improved communications so that the word could get out faster. People started using specific weather radios to get their severe weather information, which made a big difference in how much warning they had today. Smartphones can obviously do that for us.

[Greg Forbes]

And all in all, we're in a much better position now when it comes to tornado warnings.

[Sally Helm]

Of course, we still have had deadly.

[Greg Forbes]

Tornadoes since even with the latest technology. But the advances we've made came about partly as a result of this huge 1974 storm.

[Sally Helm]

And in general, Forbes reminds us whether prediction technology today is pretty incredible.

[Professor Jeff Trapp]

Then you were lucky if you could predict the weather for today and tomorrow. Now we come to expect almost perfect forecasts five or six or seven days.

[Sally Helm]

In advance, which is part of what brought him to meteorology in the first place, that amazing ability to predict the future and save lives. Thanks for listening to History this week. For more moments throughout history that are also worth watching, check your local TV listings to find out what's on the History Channel today. This episode was Produced by Julie McGruder. History this week is also produced by McCamey, Lynn, Ben Dickstein and me, Sally Helm. Our editor and sound designer is Dan Rosado and our researcher is Emma Frederick. Our executive producers are Jesse Katz and Ted Butler. Don't forget to subscribe Rate and review History this Week wherever you get your podcasts and we will see you next week.