US Tornado Warnings Break 14-Year Record

The violent storms that left seven dead this week coincided with the highest number of severe thunderstorm and tornado warnings for 14 years.

The National Weather Service (NWS) issued 728 tornado and severe thunderstorm warnings in a 24-hour period ending Thursday. That was the highest number since April 27, 2011, when 881 were issued.

Thursday’s total was also the third highest number of warnings in a single day in the past 39 years, behind the 2011 storm event and May 30, 2004, when 834 warnings were recorded, according to data provided to Newsweek.

Why It Matters

Seven people were killed across Tennessee, Missouri and Indiana in the storms that began Wednesday, according to the Associated Press.

Tennessee Governor Bill Lee said in Selmer: “The devastation is enormous. What’s most difficult about it is, you know that those are lives destroyed… In some cases, true life lost, but in other cases, everything people owned, up in trees.”

What To Know

A rare tornado emergency – the NWS’s highest tornado alert – was declared briefly around Blytheville, Arkansas, on Wednesday evening, with debris detected 25,000 feet in the air, according to reports.

Tornado reports have been confirmed in eight states so far this week – Arkansas, Missouri, Kentucky, Indiana, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Mississippi, and Kansas.

In Missouri, one person died in Cape Girardeau, as reported by the Missouri State Highway Patrol. Officials told CNN that the cause of death is still under investigation.

Additionally, several train cars were derailed in Vernon County, Missouri, after winds reaching an estimated 98 miles per hour hit the area on Wednesday morning, according to OzarksFirst.

In Indiana, a tornado caused a partial collapse of a warehouse in Brownsburg, trapping three individuals. According to CNN, one of them was later taken to hospital.

Meanwhile, in Kentucky, four people were injured near a church in Ballard County after taking shelter in a van parked beneath a carport. One person was reported to be in a critical condition, while the other three suffered non-life-threatening injuries.

Additionally, hundreds of thousands of people across the impacted states were left without power as strong winds and fallen trees damaged infrastructure.

What People Are Saying

AccuWeather meteorologist Mike Youman told Newsweek: “We can confirm that the number of tornado/severe thunderstorm warnings issued by the National Weather Service was the most from them since the April 27, 2011 outbreak.”

Internet meteorologist Ryan Hall wrote on X, formerly Twitter: “Yesterday’s storm system triggered 728 severe & tornado warnings, the highest single-day count since the historic April 2011 outbreak.

“The data shows we just experienced the third most active severe weather day in nearly four decades.”

What Happens Next

Parts of the Midwest and South face the possibility of torrential rains and life-threatening flash floods through the weekend, while many communities are still reeling from tornadoes that destroyed whole neighborhoods.

Forecasters at AccuWeather have warned of “catastrophic” weather continuing through Saturday night, with the possibility of “intense rainfall rates.”