This page documents the tornadoes and tornado outbreaks of 1950, primarily in the United States. Most tornadoes form in the U.S., although some events may take place internationally.
This was the first year where tornadoes were documented by the U.S. Weather Bureau, which would later become the National Weather Service. Tornado statistics for older years like this often appear significantly lower than modern years due to fewer reports or confirmed tornadoes. As a result, this would be the least active tornado season ever recorded. In subsequent years, the documentation of tornadoes became much more widespread and efficient, with the average annual tornado count being around 1,253.
Events
A major milestone in weather history, 1950 marks the first public tornado warning and use of radar to track storms. With this, tornado records began to be kept and a database was started. However, tornadoes were not given ratings until the Fujita scale came into effect in 1973, at which point every confirmed tornado back to 1950 was officially rated.
1950 had an early and violent start to the year with the first tornadoes touching down on January 3. Two F3 tornadoes and one F1 tornado touching down. One of the F3 tornadoes struck the northern suburbs of St. Louis, Missouri and caused almost $3 million in damage. The first killer tornado of 1950 was a lone F3 tornado on January 13 which struck Polk County, Arkansas killing one and injuring another. A rare F2 tornado also touched down in Northeastern Illinois on January 26. This is one of only two tornadoes to hit that area in the month of January with the other being an EF3 tornado on January 7, 2008. A deadly tornado outbreak occurred between February 11-13 across the Southern United States. A total of 19 tornadoes touched down, including an F4 tornado which left at least 18 people dead along an track in Louisiana on February 12. There were eight killer tornadoes, six of which were on February 12, which left at least 45 people dead. Two other long track tornadoes touched down in Louisiana, and F3 tornado which tracked leaving five dead, and an F2 tornado which traveled and left another five dead. Deadly outbreaks also occurred during the next two months of the year. The end of March saw 16 tornadoes in the Mississippi Valley with one fatality and 52 injuries. Little Rock, Arkansas was hit by an F2 tornado during the outbreak while back-to-back F2 tornadoes also hit Jackson, Mississippi. April began with a small outbreak that generated a fatal F3 tornado that killed one and injured eight in Tuckerman, Arkansas before a bigger outbreak took place at the end of the month. Seven tornadoes would touch down in the Central Plains and Mississippi, including violent F4 tornadoes in both Texas and Oklahoma, killing 11 and injuring 38.
The beginning of May, the most active month of the year on average in the United States, produced another tornado outbreak across the Central Plains, killing one and injuring 26. An F4 tornado in the outbreak produced near-F5 damage in Zook, Kansas. The end of the month saw four tornadoes strike the United Kingdom, killing four people. June had at least four killer tornadoes in the United States. At the beginning of the month, an F3 tornado killed two and injured one north of Kosciusko, Mississippi. Several days later, a violent F4 tornado hit Southern McPherson, Kansas, killing one and injuring five. A couple of weeks later, a tornado outbreak in Wisconsin produced killer F2 and F4 tornadoes in Colby and Rhinelander respectively, killing three and injuring 12. An additional outbreak sequence that took place during the middle of the month before that one injured 110 people with 101 of those injuries coming from an F2 tornado in Center, Nebraska. Tornado activity began to decrease in July, but an F4 tornado did injure 33 north of Uehling, Nebraska during the middle of the month. Four days later, 30 more people were injured when an F3 tornado hit Southeastern Lima, Ohio as well as Beaverdam.
Several tornadic events took place internationally as the activity in the United States went close to dormancy. Several damaging tornadic events struck Europe in July and September, while another tornado injured seven people in Serangoon, Singapore at the beginning of November. The final major tornado event of the year took place in the United States when four tornadoes struck Illinois and Arkansas, killing three and injuring 28.
United States yearly total
January
There were seven tornadoes confirmed in the US in January.