Weather History

This Day In Weather History

In 1965, the Palm Sunday Tornado Outbreak raked parts of five states from the Upper Midwest to the Lower Great Lakes Region. The outbreak was comprised of 47 tornadoes, 19 of which were violent. The outbreak tore through Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Southern Michigan and Ohio. Indiana was likely hit the hardest, where 137 people were killed and 1,200 were injured. Of the 10 tornadoes that struck Indiana, 8 were violent. Perhaps the most appalling tornadoes were a pair of F4s that tore through Northern Indiana and Southern Michigan. These two behemoths each averaged between ONE AND ONE AND A HALF MILES WIDE along tracks that totaled 165 MILES. The damage track in one extreme Southern Michigan County that was hit by both tornadoes was nearly four miles wide. The two tornadoes killed 44 and injured 612. A third F4 tornado that roared between Elkhart and Goshen, Indiana evolved into a dramatic double funnel as it crossed a highway. The "dynamic duo" killed 14 and injured 200. The wing of an airplane parked at the Goshen Airport was found 35 miles away in Centerville, Michigan. Of the two F5 tornadoes, one struck the Cleveland suburb of Strongsville, Ohio, where 18 were killed and 200 were injured. On the north side of Strongsville, several homes vanished. Prior to hitting Strongsville, the vicious vortex plowed through Pittsfield which was almost completely destroyed. Six of the houses in Pittsfield vanished. In all, the outbreak killed 256 and injured around 1,500.

In 2022 dollars, the outbreak would have caused 7.6 billion dollars damage.
This Day in Weather History Archive