Type Tornado outbreak Tornadoes confirmed ≥ 25 Duration of tornado outbreak ~1 day Start date March 16, 1942 | Duration March 16–17, 1942 Max rating Damage Unknown | |
Similar 1953 Waco tornado outbreak, 1970 Lubbock tornado, 1965 Palm Sunday tornado o, 1999 Oklahoma tornado o, 1974 Super Outbreak | ||
Weather history march 1942 tornado outbreak
The March 1942 tornado outbreak was a deadly late-winter tornado outbreak which struck a large area of the Central and Southern United States on March 16–17, 1942. The tornado outbreak killed 153 people and injured at least 1,284. At least five states reported violent, F4–F5 tornadoes, making the outbreak the fifth-most widespread in terms of violent tornadoes—only outbreaks in 1920, 1965, 1917, and 1974 featured a wider distribution of violent tornadoes. Violent tornadoes occurred from Illinois and Indiana south to Mississippi, beginning with an F4 tornado in the morning in Illinois. Intense activity spread south to the Gulf Coast and north to the Michigan–Indiana border as the day went on. Seven violent tornadoes were reported, one of which was a powerful F5 in Illinois. The March 1942 outbreak also produced 18 tornadoes that caused at least one death, one of the highest such totals for a single outbreak.
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Avalon–O'Tuckalofa–Tula, Mississippi
A long-tracked tornado family first leveled many homes in Leflore County, killing three people southeast of Itta Bena and 3 miles (4.8 km) northwest of Greenwood. Entering Carroll County, it caused five more deaths near Avalon and tossed a school bus 50 yards (150 ft), injuring the driver and 11 children. Seven more deaths were reported, three each in two leveled homes near Holcomb and Cascilla, plus a dead child in a school bus. The worst damage was near O'Tuckalofa, southeast of Water Valley, where 10 square miles (26 km2) of forest were flattened and 19 people died, including the school superintendent whose home and school were leveled and whose car was moved 300 yards (900 ft). A report card from the school was transported 100 miles (160 km). Northwest of Tula, five more deaths occurred, four of them in one home. The last reported damage was to schools in the Ecru and New Harmony areas, but one of the tornadoes in the family could have continued to Baldwyn, Mississippi, as the F3 farther below.