4/3/74-4/4/74: IL, IN, MI, OH, TN, KE, AL, MS, GA, NC, VA, WV, NY, ON 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.