Over its history, the St. Louis area has been a tornado hotbed, with numerous funnels making their presence known. Dating back as far as the early 1870s to 2025, many proved deadly and catastrophic, while others were only a footnote in history. In this summary, we discuss the sixteen twisters officially documented within St. Louis proper.
On the morning of Christmas Eve 1988, an isolated severe weather event unfolded in the Nashville suburbs of Franklin and Brentwood, TN. A fatal and violent tornado tore a 6-mile path through populated neighborhoods in the pre-dawn hours, killing one and injuring at least seven people. In less than ten minutes, the F4 caused millions of dollars in damage but left many families grateful for survival during the Christmas holiday. This twister was the only one recorded that day.
In 2021, many of us watched as storms tore apart lives and communities across Arkansas, Missouri, Tennessee, Illinois, and Kentucky. After events of this magnitude, images depicting seas of wreckage where homes and businesses once stood can blind us to the true nature of the loss at hand. Ranging from six days to 98 years of age, a total of 92 people lost their lives during the tornado event. They were cherished as friends or family by thousands. This article details the stories of every one of those people, as well as all of the 23 significant tornadoes that formed during this event.
What was possibly a family of tornadoes traveled over 30 miles through parts of Daviess and Hancock Counties in Kentucky across the Ohio River into Perry County, Indiana. There were 3 injuries.
A total of 7 early AM tornadoes occurred across parts of the south on December 10, 1967. We look at one of those in this summary. It hit in the panhandle of Florida around Fort Walton Beach around 315 am. A total of 35 homes and 9 businesses were destroyed. Another 290 homes had some sort of damage.
9 tornadoes were confirmed on December 8, 1966. All but two were in the state of Missouri. One that traveled through parts of Washington County was given a rating of F3.
This quick-hitting tornado developed about a mile east of Interstate 75 near Riverview, 12 miles SE of Tampa. It took 4 minutes for this tornado to travel 2 miles. Most of the damage was to the Cowley Cove mobile home complex.
During the early morning of December 6, 1983, an F3 tornado crossed through parts of Dallas County, AL in the Selma Area. It developed near Alabama Highway 22 west of Selma and moved northeastward for 13 miles. At least 103 structures were damaged/destroyed along the path.
‘They had always said Vicksburg would never have a tornado because of the river’ – Marie Renaud, survivor of the 1953 Vicksburg Tornado. Marie was interviewed by the NWS Jackson for the 60th anniversary of the tornado. She was 11 years old when the tornado hit. She, like many Vicksburg, MS residents believed that the river would protect them from a tornado. Unfortunately, on December 5, 1953, a destructive twister crossed over the Mighty Mississippi and directly hit the town of Vicksburg.
One of the strongest tornadoes to ever hit in Southeastern Louisiana occurred on December 6, 1983. The tornado was rated F4 on the Fujita Scale. This damage was found at the Belle Pointe Subdivision. Several homes had their foundations swept clean. Per Storm Data, the tornado was not given an F5 rating, “because the walls were nailed to the foundation, not bolted.”
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