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 June 23, 1944, a historic tornado outbreak occurred across the Appalachians. This outbreak featured the deadliest tornado to ever strike Pennsylvania and the deadliest ever recorded in West Virginia.
Main Writer Nick Wilkes documents the violent tornado outbreak that hit parts of Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York and Ontario on May 31, 1985.
On May 31, 1985, an F2 tornado tore through Pymatuning State Park near Linesville, cutting a nine-mile path from Pymatuning Lake through the End of the Road Campground. The tornado resulted in one fatality and injured at least 20 others as it passed through the area.
By the early morning of April 4, 1974, the Super Tornado Outbreak had dealt most of its rage throughout the Midwestern and Southeastern United States. The remnants of supercell thunderstorms had primarily congealed into a solid wall of severe winds and rain as it pushed into the Appalachian region. In East Tennessee, at least six twisters were documented by the Storm Prediction Center (SPC) after midnight. Most were weak, and casualty numbers were relatively low.
However, one of these funnels proved deadly when it struck a mobile home park near Knoxville, TN. A set of twin infants lost their lives, and 21 people were injured along the path. At the time, it was only the third tornado ever documented in Knox County, and as of this summary’s publication, it is the only one to be fatal.
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.
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.
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.
There was one tornado confirmed on December 4, 1955. It quickly hit near Brownsville, SC (Marlboro County) around dusk. The official rating in the SPC Database is F2. Grazulis believes the damage was closer to F3 strength.
6 tornadoes are found in the SPC Database for December 4, 1956. Two were in Kansas (both given a rating of F)), the rest in the state of Missouri (all rated F2). We look at one of these Missouri tornadoes in this summary.
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