The Worst Tornadoes in US History: Deadliest, Widest, Longest-Tracked (Mapped)

The worst tornado in US history is the Tri-State Tornado of March 18, 1925, which killed 695 people across Missouri, Illinois and Indiana. Since official records began in 1950, the deadliest is the Joplin, Missouri tornado of May 22, 2011 (158 deaths); the widest is El Reno, Oklahoma on May 31, 2013 (2.6 miles); and the longest track in SPC's database since the 1973 Kansas–Nebraska track is the Western Kentucky tornado of December 10, 2021: 168.5 miles (165.6 on the National Weather Service damage survey), essentially tied with a 168.5-mile 1975 Florida–Georgia track. Below: the lists, the worst tornado in 28 states, and a map of every tornado named here.

How the lists are built: the 1950–2025 rankings come from the NOAA Storm Prediction Center (SPC) tornado database, downloaded October 9, 2026. One row is one tornado, so a tornado that crossed a state line is counted once. Dates are local (SPC logs Central Standard Time): Kissimmee, at 11:40 p.m. CST on February 22, 1998, is dated February 23. Deaths before 1950 come from SPC's list of the 25 deadliest US tornadoes. Where two official sources disagree, both figures are given.

The Deadliest Tornadoes in US History

Eight of the ten deadliest US tornadoes struck before 1950, before formal damage surveys and official ratings; only Joplin and Flint–Beecher carry one. SPC cautions that "some of these events may have been composed of multiple tornadoes along a damage path," and that death counts from the 1800s and early 1900s "should be treated as estimates."

The Tri-State Tornado's toll is in a class of its own: more than twice the second-worst on the list. According to the National Weather Service office in Paducah, it touched down 3 miles north-northwest of Ellington, Missouri at 1:01 p.m., crossed southern Illinois — where more than 600 people died, 234 of them in Murphysboro alone — and dissipated about 3 miles southwest of Petersburg, Indiana, three and a half hours later; at least 71 died in southwest Indiana. It injured 2,027 people and is retrospectively regarded as an F5.

The Deadliest Tornadoes Since 1950

Joplin's 158 deaths are 42 more than the next-worst, Flint–Beecher in 1953. Two years account for six of the ten: 1953, with three of the top four in 29 days, and 2011, with three.

Two caveats. The 1971 Cary–Middleton and 1966 Candlestick Park tornadoes tie at 58 deaths; they are ordered here by injuries. And SPC's own "25 deadliest" page lists Worcester with 90 deaths, while its database records 94. We rank by the database and show its figure.

No US tornado since Joplin has killed more than 57.

Map: Every Tornado on This Page

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The map draws all 45 tornadoes since 1950 named here, coloured by F- or EF-rating, plus the 17 pre-1950 tornadoes. Lines by era:

• 2015 onward (six tornadoes): our NWS damage-survey (DAT) path where it covers the whole track. Lee County, Alabama (2019): it covers 26.6 of 68.0 miles, so SPC's line is used.
• 1950–2014: straight SPC start-to-end lines, as in SPC's track file. Warner Robins, Larose and Ivy have only a start point (dots).
• Before 1950: no surveyed track or official rating; a purple dot at or near the town SPC names. The Tri-State line (Ellington, Missouri to Petersburg, Indiana) is approximate.

Switchable layers add NWS warning polygons (alerts, 2002+), survey points and EF contours (2011+; none for Joplin), width envelopes, storm reports (1955+), radar (1995+) and hail and rotation swaths (late 2019+).

The Widest Tornadoes on Record

The widest tornado ever recorded is the El Reno, Oklahoma tornado of May 31, 2013: 2.6 miles (4,576 yards) across. The NWS office in Norman calls it "the widest known tornado on record." It was also "one of the most powerful tornadoes sampled by mobile radar," yet it is rated only EF3, because ratings come from damage, and over open country it hit little that could prove higher winds. It killed eight people, all motorists caught along Interstate 40 and nearby roads.

Width matters most for exposure: a wider path sweeps more buildings per mile. Three of the five widest have struck since 2008.

The Longest Tornado Tracks: A Disputed Record

• The Tri-State Tornado (1925): the NWS Paducah office gives a 219-mile path, "a record for a single tornado." A 2013 reanalysis it cites found that the 174 miles from central Madison County, Missouri to western Pike County, Indiana were likely continuous, and the 151 miles from central Bollinger County, Missouri the most likely to have been continuous.
• The SPC database (1950–2025): the longest recorded track is a 234.7-mile F2 from Louisiana into Mississippi on March 22, 1953. The top seven all date from 1953 to 1973, before modern damage surveys. A 176-mile F1 from 1965 is recorded as 10 yards wide.
• The modern record: the Western Kentucky tornado of December 10, 2021 has SPC's longest track since the 1973 Kansas–Nebraska track, by a hair: 168.53 miles vs 168.5 for a January 12, 1975 F2 from the Florida Panhandle into Georgia (recorded to a tenth of a mile); on either NWS figure below, the 1975 track is longer. By source: 168.5 miles in the SPC database; 165.6 miles on the NWS DAT surveyed path in our archive; and 165.7 miles on the NWS Paducah event page, which calls it the "ninth longest tornado path ever recorded in the U.S."

The Worst Tornado in Each State

The rule: every state whose deadliest tornado since 1950 killed at least six people there, untied. That gives 28 states (South Carolina's top two tie at 7). Deaths are those SPC records inside the state, so Udall, which touched down in Oklahoma, is under Kansas (80). The last column lists every pre-1950 tornado on SPC's 25-deadliest list that killed at least as many there.

Pre-1950 figures are SPC's event totals, marked "combined" where a tornado crossed a state line and no split exists. The Tri-State splits are from NWS Paducah, which counts 11 deaths in Missouri. Mississippi's top two are nearly tied: Candlestick Park killed 57 of its 58 in Mississippi.

By total tornado deaths since 1950, Alabama leads with 682, followed by Texas (593), Mississippi (533), Missouri (423) and Arkansas (415). City-level history and live alerts for tornado country are on our Oklahoma City, Tulsa, Dallas, Memphis, Nashville, Louisville and Kansas City tornado-risk pages.

In the DisasterAWARE Archive Since 2015

DisasterAWARE's archive holds 15,774 distinct tornadoes from January 3, 2015 to September 30, 2026 (UTC), each built from SPC, NCEI and/or NWS damage-survey records. Its tornado warnings are kept separate and never counted as tornadoes. These are the five deadliest, with the NWS damage-survey path stored on each tornado's record (OBSERVED tier):

Deaths and track lengths are from the SPC database. NWS Jackson, KY reports 19 Somerset–London deaths, one more than SPC's 18.

Were they warned? (ALERT tier.) For all five, an NWS tornado warning polygon covered the touchdown point when the tornado formed. Four were issued 12 to 41 minutes earlier: Rolling Fork 12, Somerset–London 22, Western Kentucky 26 and Lee County 41. Cookeville's (NWS Nashville) was issued at 1:48 a.m. CST, the same minute SPC records touchdown: no lead time. Source: NWS storm-based warnings (Iowa Environmental Mesonet VTEC archive), checked against each SPC start point and time. A warning is an issued product, not proof of what happened on the ground.

For Insurers and Reinsurers

Single tornadoes are small-footprint, high-severity losses. Joplin's path was 21.6 miles long and at most 1,600 yards wide. Even taking the maximum width along the whole length, that is under 20 square miles, yet SPC's database records $2.8 billion in property damage for it (nominal dollars, a Storm Data estimate). An AP review a year later called it the costliest tornado since at least 1950, with insurance expected to cover most of the $2.8 billion.

Why tornado sits inside severe convective storm (SCS). The storms that produce tornadoes also produce hail and straight-line wind, so tornado is modelled, reinsured and reported as part of SCS. Swiss Re estimated $50 billion of global insured SCS losses in 2025, the third-highest year on record after 2023 and 2024, and said it is "observing a steady rise in losses from severe convective storms."

What the record says about the view of risk.

• The extremes are path events. The deadliest and costliest tornadoes on these lists hit towns: Joplin, Tuscaloosa, Moore, Mayfield.
• The record is uneven by era. Widths and lengths from the early decades were recorded without today's survey tools, and ratings moved from the Fujita to the Enhanced Fujita scale in February 2007. Any frequency-severity curve fitted to 1950s data inherits those limits.
• The modern data is path-level. Of the 244 tornadoes rated EF3 or higher in our archive since 2019, 237 are linked to an NWS DAT surveyed path, with EF-rated segments and damage points. That supports the questions underwriters actually ask: which locations were inside the EF2+ segment, and how close did the EF4 core pass?

What event-level data exists. DisasterAWARE Historical Event Intelligence stores each tornado as one event, kept separate from the warnings issued for it. Each event carries its rating and, where linked, the NWS surveyed path, damage-survey points, related storm reports and the warning polygons that covered it. Surveyed paths are linked for most tornadoes since 2019 (few before 2017), so portfolios can be screened by path, not county counts, and the same records feed real-time alerting.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the worst tornado in US history? The Tri-State Tornado of March 18, 1925. It killed 695 people and injured 2,027 across Missouri, Illinois and Indiana, according to the National Weather Service. Since official records began in 1950, the deadliest is the Joplin, Missouri EF5 of May 22, 2011, with 158 deaths.

What was the widest tornado ever recorded? The El Reno, Oklahoma tornado of May 31, 2013, at 2.6 miles (4,576 yards) wide. Second is the Hallam, Nebraska tornado of May 22, 2004, at 4,400 yards (2.5 miles).

What is the longest tornado path ever recorded? It is disputed. The 1925 Tri-State Tornado is traditionally given 219 miles, though a 2013 reanalysis found only about 174 miles likely continuous. SPC's database has a 234.7-mile track from 1953, recorded before modern damage surveys. The longest surveyed with modern methods is the Western Kentucky tornado of December 10, 2021: 165.6 miles on the NWS damage survey and 168.5 miles in the SPC database.

What was the deadliest tornado since 1950? Joplin, Missouri, May 22, 2011: an EF5 that killed 158 people and injured 1,150. It is the seventh-deadliest US tornado on record and the deadliest since the 1947 Woodward, Oklahoma tornado.

Which state has had the most tornado deaths? Alabama, with 682 tornado deaths from 1950 through 2025 in SPC's database. Texas (593) and Mississippi (533) follow. Alabama's deadliest was the Hackleburg–Phil Campbell EF5 of April 27, 2011, which killed 72.

Related Reading

• EF5 Tornadoes: The Complete List, What the Rating Means, and Where 2026 Stands
• Tornadoes of 2026: The Running Record
• Real-Time Tornado Alerts from DisasterAWARE
• Historical Event Intelligence

Sources: NOAA Storm Prediction Center tornado database 1950–2025 (spc.noaa.gov/wcm, downloaded October 9, 2026) and "The 25 Deadliest U.S. Tornadoes" (spc.noaa.gov/faq/tornado/killers.html); NWS Paducah, 1925 Tri-State Tornado and December 10–11, 2021 tornado pages; NWS Norman, May 31, 2013 event page; NWS Jackson, KY, May 16, 2025 Somerset–London tornado page; NWS Jackson, MS, Easter 2020 final survey (May 1, 2020); NWS Wilmington, OH, 1974 Super Outbreak page; NWS State College, 1985 Tornado Outbreak Summary; NWS Damage Assessment Toolkit paths via the DisasterAWARE Historical Hazards archive (queried October 9, 2026); Iowa Environmental Mesonet VTEC storm-based warnings; AP via Fox News, May 19, 2012; Swiss Re, as reported by Artemis, December 16, 2025. Town locations: US Census Bureau 2024 Gazetteer.