The 1965 Palm Sunday Tornado Outbreak
The story of the 1965 tornado outbreak that ravaged the mid-west taking countless lives and destroying thousands of homes and businesses.
A view of some of the major tornados and their paths during the outbreak
On April 11th, 1965, or Palm Sunday, 47 tornadoes touched down all throughout the mid-west including Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio. During that faithful day, the weather teams did know this coming, however, nobody in the general public knew this was coming because it was a beautiful spring day and everyone was either at church or just generally outside of their home as it was a nice day.
The cause for this tragedy was said to be from cold winds from the north along a hurricane from the south as well as a moist layer in the atmosphere. There were some places where winds reached over 200 miles per hour. During the outbreak, which lasted about 16 hours, had 18 tornadoes categorized at F4 status almost reaching F5. In total, over 250 people died in this catastrophe and over 1,500 injured and just in Indiana, over 130 people died, and an estimated 1,200 people were injured. Along with the deaths and injuries, over 3,500 buildings were destroyed and an estimated 1.2 billion dollars in structural damage was done during the outbreak.
On that faithful day, there were some interesting, and scary, tornadoes that formed during the outbreak. This tornado outbreak was predicted but nobody really knew in the general public what was going to happen especially not being around radios and TV all day. One good thing that did come out of this natural disaster was more tornado information (where to go, what to do, how to survive, etc.) and a tornado watch, and warning was created. These tornadoes also gave scientists a huge understanding of tornadoes as there was a lot of tornadoes to study.
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This is one of the largest tornadoes in the outbreak that went through Branch County, Michigan which killed 44 people and was 2 F4 tornadoes combined into 1. This tornado tracked from Orland, Indiana to Washtenaw County which is a total of 80 miles.
A "double tornado" om Elkhart, Indiana during the outbreak which tore through Northern Indiana.