At a Glance
- F/EF4 and F/EF5 tornadoes make up a small fraction of all tornadoes.
- Yet they're responsible for a majority of the nation's tornado deaths.
- There have already been a few tornadoes this strong in 2024.
- Two happened in Oklahoma and one in Iowa.
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Violent tornadoes - rated EF4 or EF5 - are few in number, but often deadly, and we've already had a few such twisters in 2024.
Aren't all tornadoes violent? While all tornadoes are dangerous, meteorologists reserve "violent" for those with the two highest ratings on the Enhanced-Fujita scale - EF4 or EF5.
That's because these strongest tornadoes are capable of devastating damage, such as crushing and throwing vehicles, leveling well-built homes, even sweeping foundations clean. These select few tornadoes are estimated to have peak winds of 166 mph or higher.
Here is the list of 2024's violent tornadoes:
May 21: Greenfield, Iowa
- Rating: EF4
- Peak estimated winds: 185 mph
- 5 killed, 35 injured
This tornado traveled over 40 miles in 46 minutes in southwestern Iowa, beginning near Villisca, Iowa, and traveling northeastward through the heart of Greenfield, Iowa. Damage consistent with EF4 strength was found in Greenfield, but surveys continue.
May 6: Barnsdall, Oklahoma
- Rating: EF4
- Peak estimated winds: 175 mph
- 1 killed
This long-track tornado from a supercell thunderstorm, began southeast of Hominy, Oklahoma, then heavily damaged homes and a wax plant on the east side of Barnsdall. Some trees were found to be stripped of bark and denuded of all vegetation, typical of the most intense tornadoes. The tornado then went on to track into the southern and eastern sides of Bartlesville.
It was the second time Barnsdall was hit by a tornado in five weeks.
April 27: Marietta, Oklahoma
- Rating: EF4
- Peak estimated winds: 170 mph
- Path length: 27 miles from southwest of Marietta to east of Baum
- 1 killed
The EF4 rating was due to damage sustained at a Dollar Tree warehouse and a retail store in Marietta after consultation with an engineer, according to NWS-Norman warning coordination meteorologist Rick Smith.
This was one of at least 130 confirmed tornadoes in the April 25-28 Plains outbreak.
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Some caveats: MyRadar Weather and Washington Post meteorologist Matthew Cappucci noted the NWS-San Angelo, Texas, office has consulted with a structural engineer regarding the May 2 tornado near Hawley, Texas. NWS offices usually consult with engineers for suspected more intense tornadoes to inform their final damage ratings.
Then there's the nature of rating tornadoes. As weather.com meteorologist Jonathan Belles wrote, the EF scale can only estimate a tornado's peak winds from the damage it inflicts, since we don't have thousands of weather instruments capable of measuring every tornado's wind speed at the ground.
That means if the tornado doesn't hit anything well constructed, it may not be rated highly even if it was a stronger tornado.
That came to light with an April 30 tornado in southwest Oklahoma. Despite its spectacular presentation in radar imagery, including an adjacent tornado that spun the opposite direction, a damage survey from the NWS-Norman office could only find EF1 damage in its wake.
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Few in numbers, thankfully: These intense tornadoes are pretty rare. This century, the U.S. has averaged only 5 to 6 violent tornadoes per year, about 0.5% of the nation's total.
In 2018, there were no EF4 or EF5 tornadoes anywhere in the U.S. It was the only year without a single violent tornado dating to 1950.
There hasn't been a tornado rated EF5 in the U.S. since the Oklahoma City/Moore tornado on May 20, 2013.
Almost 90% of tornadoes from 2000 through 2022 were weak — rated F/EF0 or F/EF1 — but they're still capable of light to moderate damage to trees and homes, and significant damage to mobile homes.
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But they're often deadly: From 2000 through 2023, the most recent year in which finalized tornado death counts are available from NOAA's Storm Prediction Center, this tiny fraction of tornadoes was responsible for roughly half of all U.S. tornado deaths.
The death toll from these 126 violent tornadoes (850 lives) exceeded the death toll from the other 27,317 tornadoes combined (820 lives). Put another way, each F/EF4 tornado killed an average of four or five people, while F/EF5 tornadoes killed an average of 37.
Spring is peak time: We examined the 646 violent tornadoes in NOAA's database from 1950 through 2023 to see if there was a peak time of year.
We found a broad peak from April through early June, during which 59% of violent tornadoes occurred.
Multiple violent tornadoes can often cluster in higher-end outbreaks, accounting for some of this spring peak. Among these historic outbreaks include:
- April 2011 Super Outbreak: 15 violent tornadoes on April 27 alone, including four rated EF5
- May 3, 1999, Plains Outbreak: First F5 on record to hit Oklahoma City metro; F4 strikes southern side of Wichita, Kansas
- April 1974 Super Outbreak: 30 violent tornadoes, including six rated F5
- April 1965 Palm Sunday Outbreak: 22 violent tornadoes
The 25 deadliest tornadoes on record in the U.S. all occurred from mid-March through June.
Why spring: Spring typically provides a prime overlap of ingredients in the southern and central U.S. needed to generate the intense, rotating supercell thunderstorms that can spawn violent tornadoes.
Increasingly warm, humid air streaming northward out of the Gulf of Mexico is topped by cold, dry air aloft and a powerful jet stream pivoting out of the West. This provides the instability needed to generate thunderstorms.
In these cases, wind shear — the change in wind speed and direction with height — is intense. This allows supercells to form and provides the spin needed to stretch and tilt into tornadoes.
Violent tornadoes are much less common from mid-summer through fall and winter, but they can happen any time of year if the volatile setup is in place. They have occurred in every month, including winter.
For example, Christmas Eve F4 tornadoes tore through parts of Arkansas and Missouri in 1982 and Tennessee in 1988.
Top states: It should come as no surprise where violent tornadoes occur most often.
From 1950 through 2023, the conventional Plains "Tornado Alley" states of Oklahoma, Texas, Iowa and Kansas had the largest number of violent tornadoes.
Elevated violent tornado counts also extend eastward into the Ohio Valley and a southern corridor that includes Alabama, Mississippi and Tennessee.
Damage from at least one violent tornado has been observed in 33 of 50 states.
Violent tornadoes are less common east of the Appalachians but have occurred as far north as Massachusetts and upstate New York, and as far south as Florida.
Just one violent tornado has been documented from the Rockies to the West Coast.
On July 21, 1987, an F4 tornado reportedly uprooted 1 million trees as it ripped a path across the Teton and Yellowstone areas of northwestern Wyoming. The tornado affected elevations between 8,500 and 10,000 feet, making it the highest altitude that a violent tornado has been documented.
MORE ON WEATHER.COM
- How Often Your State Sees Tornadoes In A Year
- 15 Severe Safety Tips That Could Save Your Life
- How Tornadoes Are Rated
Jonathan Erdman is a senior meteorologist at weather.com and has been covering national and international weather since 1996. His lifelong love of meteorology began with a close encounter with a tornado as a child in Wisconsin. He completed a Bachelor's degree in physics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, then a Master's degree working with dual-polarization radar and lightning data at Colorado State University. Extreme and bizarre weather are his favorite topics. Reach out to him on X (formerly Twitter), Threads, Facebook and Bluesky.
