The Palm Sunday Tornado Outbreak is the second-biggest tornado outbreak on record. Fifty-one tornadoes were involved in the outbreak and killed 260 people.
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Intro
April 11, 1965 was Palm Sunday, an important day in the Christian religion. Many people went on with their lives as usual, attending Palm Sunday services at church. There had been a short winter that year. Some people were eager to enjoy the balmy weather that day. After a while, some people were complaining about the heat, as the temperature rose to 83° F in some areas of the Midwest.
It moves east...
Right around 1 P.M., the first tornado of the day occurred in Clinton County, Iowa. It was an F4. Later in the day, the tornadoes started to become more severe. Whereas by the time the storm system got to Indiana, there were just series of killer tornadoes occurring. The first descended from the heavens at around 5:30 P.M. in Koontz Lake, Indiana. This massive F4 would kill 10 and injure 180. The second to hit was in Wakarusa, Indiana. This tornado devestated the Midway Trailer Park. The next would touch down near Goshen, Indiana and moved northeast. The community of Rainbow Lake was destroyed. Only foundations of homes indicated that there was life there.
The only F5 tornado of the outbreak formed near South Bend, Indiana, and moved east-northeast toward the town of Dunlap, Indiana. It was the infamous "double tornado" that hit the Sunnyside subdivision. Most of the 36 killed in the "double tornado" had no warning. The tornado had knocked the telephone and power grids. For the first time in the U.S. Weather Bureau's history, all nine counties in the northern Indiana office's jurisdiction was under a tornado warning. This is called a "blanket tornado warning."
With the telephone lines down, emergency services in Elkhart County, Indiana could not warn the people in Michigan that the tornadoes were headed their way. In Michigan, tornadoes hit as far north as Allendale, in Ottawa County, Michigan, just east of Grand Rapids. Out of the southernmost counties of Michigan, all but three ((Berrien County, Michigan, Cass County, Michigan and St. Joseph County, Michigan) were hit, even though tornado warnings most likely went out for these counties as well.
A mile-wide tornado hit in Milan, Michigan, near Detroit. It destroyed the Wolverine Plastics building, the top employer in Milan. It ripped off the roof like a sardine can.
Some tornadoes moved into Ohio from Indiana. Twenty-five people lay dead from an 800-yard tornado hitting near Kokomo, Indiana and Marion, Indiana. Alto, Indiana was devastated as well. Ohio was devestated by tornadoes as well. A double tornado was sighted near Toledo, Ohio.
Technology has grown tremendously since 1965: Cable and satellite television, PCs and the Internet, solid-state electronics, cell phones, and NOAA Weather Radio. And radar stations were few and far between in 1965, so therefore tornadoes were identified by "hook echoes."
Note: There were technically two Palm Sunday tornado outbreaks, the first--and more famous--occuring on April 11, 1965, the other occurring on March 27, 1994 which hit in Alabama killing 24.The Aftermath
The U.S. Weather Bureau later investigated why so many people died in this event. The answer was simple: The warning system failed. They disseminated the warnings quickly, but the public never recieved them. Additionally, the public did not know the difference between a Forecast and an Alert. Therefore, the current Tornado Watch and Tornado Warning program was implemented because of the Palm Sunday Tornado Outbreak.
