A Brief History
On December 31, 2010, the Central and Southern portion of the US was bombarded with 37 tornadoes, leaving nine people dead, more injured, and much damage across mainly Missouri and Mississippi, but also including Arkansas, Oklahoma, Illinois, and Louisiana.
Digging Deeper
Not only was the US wracked by the tornadoes, but other areas also suffered winds of 80 mph with related damage. The ordeal started on December 30th and lasted three days until January 1, 2011, a miserable way for thousands of Americans to start the New Year. As if wind damage was not enough, Mother Nature pelted Missouri with hail as large as 2.75 inches in diameter, slightly larger than a standard tennis ball!
While we usually think of tornadoes as a Spring and Summer weather threat, with about 70% of these deadly events occurring from March through June, varying by state, the Winter season is not immune to twisters and the combination of low air pressure and a cold front spawned the “super cells” that wracked the US this time. In fact, December of 2024 saw tornado activity as well!
To their credit, the Storm Prediction Center did issue a warning around December 25th that such a weather system could spawn tornadoes, with an increasing probability of tornadoes predicted as December 30th approached, although the severity of the events were not anticipated.
Question for students (and subscribers) to ponder: Have you ever witnessed a tornado in person?
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Historical Evidence
For more information, please see…
Davidson, Keay. Twister: The Science of Tornadoes and the Making of an adventure Movie. Gallery Books, 1996.
Rice, William. Tornadoes: Geology and Weather. Teacher Created Materials, 2009.
The featured image in this article, a plot by TropicalAnalystwx13 of all tornado touchdowns during the outbreak, is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license.
You can also watch video versions of this article on YouTube.