Arkansas-Tennessee tornado outbreak of 1952

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Arkansas-Tennessee tornado outbreak of 1952

Date of tornado outbreak:	March 21-22, 1952
Duration1:	~24 hours
Maximum rated tornado2:	F5 (rating disputed) tornado
Tornadoes caused:	31
Damages:	unknown
Fatalities:	209
Areas affected:	Southern United States
1Time from first tornado to last tornado 2Most severe tornado damage; see Fujita Scale

The Arkansas-Tennessee tornado outbreak of 1952 was a deadly tornado outbreak that hit the southern United States on March 21-22 1952. Particularly hard hit was the state of Arkansas where two of the deadliest tornadoes since records are kept occurred. These struck White and Woodruff Counties with the town of Judsonia being the worst hit area. The entire outbreak killed 209 people across 5 states and was the deadliest outbreak since the Tupelo-Gainesville tornado outbreak where over 450 were killed across Georgia and Mississippi. Its toll was only surpassed after 1952 by the Flint-Worcester tornado outbreak sequence in 1953, the Palm Sunday tornado outbreak of 1965 and the Super Outbreak in 1974.

Contents 1 Meteorological synopsis 2 Outbreak description 3 Tornado table 4 Confirmed tornadoes 4.1 March 21, 1952 event 4.2 March 22, 1952 event 5 Historical perspective 6 See also 7 References 8 External links

[edit] Meteorological synopsis

Outbreak death toll

State	Total	County	County total
Alabama	4	Morgan	4
Arkansas	112	Cross	4
		Howard	7
		Lonoke	11
		Mississippi	2
		Poinsett	3
		Prairie	6
		White	50
		Woodruff	29
Missouri	17	Pemiscot	17
Mississippi	9	Marshall	9
Tennessee	67	Carroll	1
		Chester	23
		Dyer	16
		Fayette	7
		Gibson	2
		Hardeman	4
		Henderson	11
		Hickman	3
Totals	209
All deaths were tornado-related

During the afternoon of March 21, 1952, two low pressure systems were tracking across the Midwest and Southern United States. The first low pressure area was located across southern Ontario while the second one was centered near Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. A warm front extended eastward towards northern Arkansas, the Missouri Boothill and western Kentucky. A cold front was stretched through most of Texas into northern Mexico. As did most large spring-time storms, the surface low provided sharp temperature contrast between each side as the temperature in Kansas City, Missouri was near freezing while south of the warm front temperatures rose to the mid to upper 70s. Warm and moist air from the Gulf of Mexico helped fuel instability and wind shear to create a favorable environment for a major tornado outbreak across much of the Deep South.^[1]

[edit] Outbreak description

Initial activity in Arkansas began at around 3:00 PM CDT when a tornado hit Howard County killing at least 7 and injuring several other people. The deadliest tornado in the modern history of Arkansas struck at around 5:00 PM CDT and traveled for about 15 miles (24 km) across White County inflicting high-end F4 damage. Particularly hard hit was the town of Judsonia where most of its business district was devastated while Bald Knob was also largely destroyed. In all, 50 people were killed by this tornado including 44 in Judsonia alone where only a Methodist Church was left undamaged.^[2]

Elsewhere in Arkansas, at tornado hit portions of Woodruff county with F4 damage before 6:00 PM CDT and killed 29 people including 22 near the Cotton Plant area. Before a tornado hit Arkansas in 1968, this was the 2nd deadliest tornado in the modern history of the state. The outbreak lasted until storms exited after 7:30 PM CDT in Mississippi County near the Blytheville area.

In Tennessee, activity began in Dyer County between 6:00 PM CDT to 8:00 CDT where several people were killed near Dyersberg and Newbern. A strong F4 tornado caused extensive damage to the town of Moscow just southeast of Memphis at around 10:00 PM CDT. It killed 16 people, including 9 in Mississippi along its 30-mile path. This tornado was previously rated an F5 before being downgrading to an F4 following further studies. A concrete block building that was completely destroyed was one of the factors that caused the initial rating. A college student who also surveyed the damage rated the tornado an F4 in Tennessee and an F3 in Mississippi.^[3] Some storm data archives from the Storm Prediction Center still shows the Moscow tornado rated as an F5.^[4] Less then 2 hours after the Moscow tornado, the same supercell spawned an even deadlier tornado across areas south of Jackson killing at least 38 making it one of the deadliest Tennessee tornadoes in modern history. According to the National Weather Service, this outbreak accounted for about 40% of the total number of tornado fatalities since 1950 across the NWS Memphis county warning area as of late-2006.^[5]

In the Missouri Bootheel region, 17 people were killed in Pemiscot County by an early evening tornado just west of the Mississippi River across from Dyer County, Tennessee. A final deadly tornado took place in Morgan County, Alabama near Huntsville before the activity ceased. While there were several other deadly tornadoes, a total of 112 people were killed in Arkansas making it the worst outbreak in the state's history^[6]. It was also one of the deadliest outbreaks ever in Tennessee with 67 deaths recorded. 17 were killed in Missouri, 9 in Mississippi and 4 in Alabama. No fatalities were reported in the lone Kentucky tornado. A total of at least 25 towns were hit by tornadoes and 2500 were injured during the outbreak.^[7]

[edit] Tornado table

Confirmed Total	Confirmed F0	Confirmed F1	Confirmed F2	Confirmed F3	Confirmed F4	Confirmed F5
31	1	2	6	11	10	1

[edit] Confirmed tornadoes

[edit] March 21, 1952 event

F#	Location	County	Time (UTC)	Path length	Damage
Arkansas
F4	E of Dierks	Howard	2040	13 miles (20.8 km)	7 deaths
F3	SW of Ferndale	Saline	2200	17.7 miles (28.3 km)
F4	SE of Searcy to W of Russell	White	2250	14.6 miles (23.4 km)	50 deaths The worst damage was in Judsonia where 44 people died. Every building, save the United Methodist Church, was affected. 385 homes were destroyed and 615 damaged. The school and two of three churches were destroyed. Everything in the 6 block businesses district was damaged or destroyed. 50 people died, 325 were injured, and $3.5 million of damage occurred ($27.9 million damage in 2008 dollars)[citation needed].
F2	S of Mayflower	Faulkner	2300	unknown
F4	NW of Carlisle	Lonoke	2300	7.6 miles (12.2 km)	2 deaths
F3	SW of Allport to W of Tollville	Lonoke	2300	16.2 miles (25.9 km)	9 deaths
F2	S of Hickory Plains	Prairie	2320	13.3 miles (21.3 km)
F1	NW of Tollville	Prairie	2320	unknown	1 death
F3	N of Georgetown to McCrory	Woodruff	2330	17.6 miles (28.2 km)
F4	Cotton Point to Hillemann	Woodruff	2330	13.1 miles (21 km)	29 deaths
F3	E of Shoffner to W of Cash	Jackson, Poinsett, Craighead	2340	28.5 miles (45.6 km)
F4	N of Ferndale	Cross	0000	unknown	4 deaths
F3	S of Greenfield to Trumann	Poinsett, Mississippi	0045	unknown	3 deaths
F3	S of Lepanto	Poinsett	0045	9.4 miles (15 km)	1 death
F3	Trumann to Blytheville	Mississippi	0100	39.7 miles (63.5 km)	1 death
Tennessee
F4	S of Lapata	Dyer	0000	4.7 miles (7.5 km)	2 deaths
F3	SE of Dyersburg	Dyer	0230	18.1 miles (29 km)	10 deaths
F4	Newbern area	Dyer	0230	2 miles (3.2 km)	4 deaths
F2	Medina area	Gibson	0445	unknown
F3	W of Lavinia	Carroll	0450	unknown
F2	W of Leach	Carroll	0500	unknown	1 death
F3	Bruceton area	Carroll	0517	5.1 miles (8.2 km)
F4	NE of Bolivar to SW of Chesterfield	Hardeman, Chester, Henderson	0530	46.8 miles (74.9 km)	38 deaths
F2	S of Bucksnort	Humphreys	0555	0.3 miles (0.5 km)
F2	SE of Spot	Hickman	0620	0.5 miles (0.8 km)	3 deaths
Missouri
F4	E of Holland	Pemiscot	0200	6.5 miles (10.4 km)	17 deaths
Mississippi
F0	N of Madison	Madison	0230	0.1 miles (0.16 km)
F5	NE of Byhalia, MS to SE of Pattersonville	Marshall, MS, Fayette, TN	0400	29.6 miles (47.4 km)	16 deaths - Disputed rating as some records classifies this tornado as an F4.[8]
Kentucky
F3	S of Hodgenville	Larue	0605	2.7 miles (4.3 km)
Source: Tornado History Project - March 21, 1952 Storm Data

[edit] March 22, 1952 event

F#	Location	County	Time (UTC)	Path length	Damage
Tennessee
F1	SE of Carthage	Smith	1715	0.3 miles (0.5 km)
Alabama
F4	N of Decatur to S of Huntsville	Morgan	2100	21.6 miles (34.6 km)	4 deaths
Source: Tornado History Project - March 22, 1952 Storm Data

[edit] Historical perspective

The 1950s were particularly active and deadly with a very high number of fatalities in 1952, 1953, 1956 and 1957 and several deadly F5 tornadoes. Several of the deadliest tornadoes and tornado outbreaks on history occurred during the decade. In 1953, 3 of the 25 deadliest tornadoes took place in Waco, Flint and Worcester. At that time, predicting and forecasting tornado activity was much more difficult due to less advanced technology making the country more vulnerable to strong and violent tornadoes than today. After other deadly outbreaks struck in the 1950s as well as in 1965, 1967 and 1974, weather agencies and officials were forced to improve tornado warning systems and severe weather forecasts. In addition, numerous Civil Defense tornado sirens were installed across many areas of the Dixie Alley, across much of the traditional Tornado Alley, and the Great Lakes/Midwest region.

[edit] See also

• List of North American tornadoes and tornado outbreaks

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• Judsonia tornado damage photos