Severe weather outbreak of April 2-3

At least 60 tornadoes ripped through Missouri, Arkansas, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, and Tennessee Sunday, killing 28 people. Hardest hit was northwest Tennessee, where tornadoes claimed at least 12 lives in Dyer County. A preliminary damage survey by the NWS rated this tornado a strong F3, with winds of 200 mph. The tornado that devastated Marmaduke, Arkansas, was also a strong F3, and may have ranked as a violent F4 tornado (207-260 mph winds) on the Fujita scale. More damage surveys are being performed today to determine the exact strength of this tornado. Many other tornadoes from this outbreak also ranked as F3, and the April 2 tornado outbreak may match the March 13 outbreak for number of strong tornadoes. The March 13 outbreak had 11 strong F3 tornadoes among the 84 that touched down.

The last time we had two major tornado outbreaks killing 12 or more people was in 1998. With the peak of tornado season still a month away, we have the potential for the nastiest tornado season seen in a long time--to go along with what could also be a very long and deadly hurricane season.

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