The Historical Record
of Violent Tornadoes
Built from official damage surveys, mobile radar measurements and Storm Prediction Center records. Every figure on this site traces back to a citation.
Which tornadoes have hit your town?
Search any US town for every confirmed tornado recorded near it since 1950, with the surveyed track, rating, width and death toll of each one.
Search a town or share your location to begin.
Every confirmed US tornado since 1950 is in the database.
The five extremes of the archive. Wind speeds come from mobile radar where a storm was sampled and from the damage survey where it was not, and widths and track lengths are the surveyed figures rather than estimates from footage.
Four storms worth reading in full, chosen for what they changed rather than for topping a table. Each page carries the ground track, the damage survey and the citations behind every figure.
F5Jarrell
The slowest violent tornado on record. Crawling at 5 to 10 mph, it stayed over the same streets long enough to sweep concrete foundations bare.
EF5Joplin
A warning went out and the sirens sounded. The service assessment found that most people went looking for confirmation instead of shelter.
EF5Hackleburg-Phil Campbell
The deadliest tornado of the worst outbreak in modern history, tracked across four Alabama counties at 210 mph.
EF5Moore
An EF5 through a suburb that had already been struck in 1999 and 2003, along very nearly the same line.
Three ways in: the storm-by-storm archive of violent tornadoes, a search covering every confirmed US tornado since 1950, and the field notes behind the instruments and terminology.
Storm Archive
Coordinate tracks, damage surveys and narrative summaries for the significant F4/EF4 and F5/EF5 tornadoes of 1896 to 2016.
Open →Tornadoes Near Me
Search any US town and see every confirmed tornado mapped around it, with the surveyed track, rating, width and death toll of each one.
Open →Field Notes
The instruments, terminology and meteorology behind severe storm intercepts, from NEXRAD to armored chase vehicles.
Open →Longer pieces on the hardware, radar signatures and rating decisions behind the archive, from what a hook echo actually shows to why El Reno was never rated EF5.
How Is a Tornado Measured? The Fujita Scale, Damage Indicators and Radar
Tornado ratings come from the damage left behind, not from a wind gauge. How the Fujita and Enhanced Fujita scales work, what the 28 damage indicators are, and where radar fits.
Storm Chase Vehicle Specs Compared: TIV, Dominator and Doppler on Wheels
Weight, engine, armor, anchoring and current status for the TIV 1, TIV 2, the Dominator series and the DOW radar trucks, with the figures side by side.
Reed Timmer's Dominator Fleet: Every Vehicle from 1 to 5
The full Dominator lineage, from the 2007 Tahoe that started it to the Dominator 5 still being built. Includes why there has never been a Dominator 4.