Here are some actual stats on some of the worst tornadoes and tornado outbreaks in the US:
~The deadliest single tornado and deadliest tornado outbreak: March 18, 1925. This outbreak only consisted of 7 tornadoes, but included the infamous “Tri-State” tornado which killed 695 people. The total number of people killed in the outbreak was 740.
~2nd on the list of deadliest tornado outbreaks is the Tupelo-Gainesville outbreak on April 5-6, 1936. 17 tornadoes killed 446 people over 2 days.
~The largest number of tornadoes in a tornado outbreak was April 3-4, 1974. The outbreak produced 148 tornadoes in 24 hours and killed 315 people. This outbreak was viewed as the worst in recent history, until the April 25-28th outbreak.
The April 26-28, 2011 tornado outbreak is the deadliest tornado outbreak in recent US history and it is one of the worst of all time. It was the single deadliest day for tornadoes since 1932 and the most people killed in a 2 day period since the April, 1936 outbreak. The 201 (confirmed & surveyed) tornado count in 24 hours ranks #1 above the April 1974 outbreak (148 tornadoes/24hrs) as the most tornadoes to occur in 1 day.
The month of April was shattered records with a total of 875 tornadoes. The record for April was 267 tornadoes set back in 1974. The record for any month was 542 tornadoes set back in May 2003. The yearly tornado record is 1,817 in 2004-hopefully we don’t beat it for 2011, but so far we’ve had over 1,000. Typically May is the busiest month for tornadoes.