Photos of New York City shrouded in wildfire smoke this week surprised younger residents of the city, who had never seen the city's skyline dimmed in such a way. Older residents remembered seeing the city disappear during deadly smog events that killed hundreds of people between 1950 and 1970, when the Environmental Protection Agency was born.
Smog obscures the view of the Chrysler Building from the Empire State Building in New York City on Nov. 20, 1953. World-Telegram photo by Walter Albertin.
In November 1953, deadly smog formed over New York City, killing an estimated 240 people. Ten years later, another event killed as many as 400 people after two weeks of the toxic air in early 1963. 1966 another smog event occurred in November, with fatality estimates as high as 400. That event, more widely studied, was caused by an atmospheric inversion that trapped the city's pollutants.
After the Clean Air Act was instituted in 1970, no more deadly smog events occurred in New York City, and pollution decreased, though unhealthy AQI values were still observed for much of the summer up until around 2009, according to EPA data.
A graph shows Very Unhealthy (purple) and Unhealthy (red) AQI values decreasing in New York City between 1980 and 2022.
Residents of the Pennsylvania steel town about 60 miles east of Pittsburgh that fateful May morning in the spring of 1889 heard a low rumble in the distance that they thought might have been the sound of thunder. It was not.
A train headed toward Johnstown, Pennsylvania, emitted a constant whine as if the whistle was stuck. Residents also noted a breeze blowing from the northeast, likely accompanied by an odd, muddy smell. As the roar grew louder, so did the wind, tossing trees around and tearing wood from nearby buildings.
An artist's illustration of the 1889 Johnstown flood, reproduced from a lithograph print published by Kurz & Allison Art Publishers (Library of Congress)
Then residents suddenly realized — to their horror — what the source of the growing rumble was. And for most, it was too late. One observer who survived the catastrophe remarked that the debris-filled wave looked like "a huge hill rolling over and over." Huge explosions from boilers expelled a black "death mist." These were the last sights and sounds that more than 2,200 people experienced as a 75-foot-high tsunami of water and debris crushed the small land-locked town. Get the rest of the story about the Johnstown Flood.
This week 10 years ago, the largest tornado on record touched down west of Oklahoma City, killing three veteran storm chasers -- Tim Samaras, his son Paul Samaras and Carl Young.
The tornado, which dissipated just 4 miles west of metro Oklahoma City, was determined to be the widest in recorded history, at 2.6 miles in width. Doppler-radar-measured winds over 300 mph. Initially rated as an EF5-strength tornado by the National Weather Service, the El Reno tornado was later downgraded to an EF3 tornado due to a lack of visual damage.
Three storm chasers were killed when this vehicle, a Chevy Cobalt, was hit by one of sub-vortices within the larger circulation of the "El Reno" tornado.
A research paper in 2014 estimated that the crew was hit by often-invisible sub-vortices inside the tornado, spun up overhead with winds maximum winds over 250 mph winds, with each vortex moving at a maximum of over 175 mph.
A memorial was created where the storm chasers lost their lives. AccuWeather Storm Chaser and Meteorologist Tony Laubach knew the three well and chased with them often.
"We study tornadoes for years and years and years," Laubach said. "And just when you think you know how it works, nature spits out something like El Reno, and you go back to the drawing board."
Read more about the El Reno tornado.
Five years ago this week, the unthinkable happened on May 27, 2018. Ellicott City, Maryland, which had undergone massive flooding less than two years prior, was once again ravaged by catastrophic flooding.
Almost a foot of rain -- more than two months' worth, fell in under two hours, turning downtown streets into swift-moving rivers. Eyewitness video showed the first floors of homes and businesses being swept downstream, along with dozens of cars. A National Guardsman was killed while assisting with the rescue.
Feet of water flowing through Ellicott City, Maryland May 27, 2018.
On July 30, 2016, a similar flood destroyed six buildings and killed two people in Ellicott City. As a result of the back-to-back floods, an outdoor tone alert system was installed in 2019. In February 2023, Howard County officials announced a new 5-year flood mitigation plan which will use money from $167 million in government funds secured in the last several years.
Read more about the Ellicott City 2018 flood.
This week 12 years ago, the deadliest tornado since 1950 hit the town of Joplin, Missouri. The twister that struck on Sunday, May 22, 2011, caused 161 fatalities and over 1,000 injuries.
Over 8,000 buildings were damaged in the city, including two local hospitals, with cars and a life flight helicopter left tattered in front of the Joplin Regional Medical Center. Damage in Joplin was over $3 billion 2023 USD.
A destroyed helicopter lies on its side in the parking lot of the Joplin Regional Medical Center in Joplin, Mo. on May 22, 2011. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein, File)
After the storm, the National Weather Service changed how it issues tornado warnings —confirming when they have been sighted on the ground instead of estimating with radar data.
Joplin was also the first large disaster response to take place on social media, with eyewitness news gathering by news outlets and citizen-led Facebook groups offering help to victims.
Mason Lillard, who 10 years old at the time, was trapped inside a truck in the parking lot of a Home Depot when the massive tornado tore through Joplin. Read Mason's story here.
Also this week in weather history:
🌧️ The "Great James River Flood" on May 26-27, 1771, killed 150 people in the Richmond, Virginia, area. George Washington called this the "Late, Great Calamity" while Thomas Jefferson described it as the "greatest flood ever known."
❄️ On May 27, 1994, a late-season snowstorm occurred across part of northern Vermont, northern New York, and Maine. Route 108 was closed between Stowe and South Cambridge in Vermont.
🌪️ A large and extremely damaging tornado tore through northern Michigan on May 20th, 2022. It was rated EF3, the strongest tornado to hit the state since 2012.
A damaged sign lies outside the wreckage of Plaza Towers Elementary School, where seven children were killed when a tornado hit Moore, Oklahoma, in May 2013. (AP Photo/Charlie Riedel)
On May 20, 2013, a massive tornado rated at EF5 strength rocked Moore, Oklahoma, and surrounding towns with 210 mph winds, killing 24 people and leaving hundreds injured. Ten years later, no tornado has matched its strength, according to National Weather Service records.
The destructive path of the twister, which was roughly 20 miles, caused around $2 billion in damage in 2013 USD. Seven children died at a school when a wall collapsed. The twister ripped apart two sections of a steel highway bridge from their concrete pillars.
Homes were swept off their foundations, even though many houses were constructed after a F5 tornado rocked the area in 1999. More than 1,600 homeowners added tornado shelters to their homes in the years following the twister.
Read more about the Moore, Oklahoma, tornado of May 20, 2013
Also this week in weather history:
🪁 Launched from aptly-named Mount Weather, Virginia, weather instruments were carried to an altitude of 23,835 feet by a tandem of 10 kites and 8.5 miles of kite wire on May 10, 1910.
🌩️ On May 21, 1983, a freak lightning bolt passed through a tree into a man’s neck, down his spine and out through his pocket, which contained metal keys. The lightning bolt also struck two men standing under the same tree on a Memphis, TN golf course. All survived.
🌓 Mostly clear weather allowed a spectacular view of a total solar eclipse in Toronto and Kingston on May 26, 1854, but clouds ruined the show in Montreal. The temperature dropped 13 degrees during the eclipse's totality in Toronto.
The deadliest tornado in Texas history struck Waco, Texas, 70 years ago this week in a town whose residents believed it was impossible for tornadoes to reach. At the heart of this disaster was the building where the Dr Pepper soda was first formulated.
"Numerous cases of Dr Pepper were sucked out of the [building]," Bill Little, a plant worker, recalled. The tornado laid waste to 600 downtown buildings, damaged another 1,000 structures, and killed 114 people, the most fatalities from one tornado in Texas history.
The Dr Pepper bottling plant sustained damage from the F5 tornado that hit Waco, Texas on May 3, 1953. However, it remains standing to this day.
The twister that hit downtown Waco was part of a larger severe weather outbreak including 32 other tornadoes in 10 states. All told, 144 people were killed by the twisters.
Read more eye-witness descriptions of the Waco, Texas, tornado
Also this week in weather history:
May 9, 1865: A thunderstorm left hail accumulations on the ground for several days between Bordeaux, France, and Belgium.
May 10, 1906: A trace of snow fell in Washington, D.C., the latest on record.
May 12, 1934: One of the most severe dust storms of the Great Dust Bowl darkened skies from Oklahoma east to the Atlantic Coast.
On May 8, 2017, an enormously powerful hailstorm led to the costliest disaster in Colorado history. The Mile-High City was coming off record-breaking heat as a potent storm moved into the area just before the evening rush hour commute. The large hailstones damaged roofs, shredded home siding until it looked like Swiss cheese, and shattered windows on vehicles and buildings.
This Colorado State Patrol car had its window smashed by large hail on May 8, 2017. (Photo/Sergeant Mullins)
One of the most costly aspects of the storm occurred when the hail began to fall over Colorado Mills Mall in Lakewood -- a nearly 1.5 million square foot building. The skylight of the mall was penetrated by baseball-sized hail, which destroyed the glass ceiling and exposed the inside of the mall to severe weather. After the storm, auto body shops reported several months-long waits, with one body shop saying they were booking two years in advance.
Semi-trailer trucks were tossed around like toys and trees were snapped like toothpicks after an EF 2 tornado impacted the town of Wray, Colorado, on May 7, 2016. Extreme meteorologist Reed Timmer captured the storm on video that day, and the breathtaking footage is in a league of its own.Video captured by Timmer shows the sheer power of the 130 mph twister up-close, which was one of the largest and most photogenic tornadoes in recent memory. Large swaths of dirt wrapped around the spinning column of air as debris sucked into the bottom of the vortices.
The movement of the cell allowed for Timmer to execute a hook slice maneuver into the storm, -- which is when as the cell moves north, they "punched through the hook echo, wrapping around the south side of that tornado and approached it from the backside." This allowed Timmer to capture one of his closest and most intense encounters to date.
Four different tornadoes were confirmed in Wray that day, injuring five people. Multiple buildings were damaged in the northern part of the town -- four of which sustained significant damage. After impacting Wray, the storms continued moving southeastward and produced tornadoes through the Heartland. Overall, 11 tornadoes were reported on May 7, 2016, all of which were in Colorado. Reports of severe hail that day spanned into Kansas as the storms trekked eastward.
On May 3, 1999, an F5 tornado struck Bridge Creek, Oklahoma, where winds of over 300 mph were recorded by Doppler radar -- the highest wind speed ever recorded on Earth. Over 600 people were injured and 41 were killed as a result of the twister, which tracked into the Oklahoma City metro area. The damage was extreme with nearly 10,000 structures destroyed. At one point, asphalt was scoured from the ground by the tornado, and cars were twisted around debarked trees. This tornado was included in Reed Timmer's top 5 most memorable tornado chases.
A truck is wrapped around a debarked tree in the aftermath of the 1999 Bridge Creek Tornado.
The twister in Bridge Creek, Oklahoma was one of 70 tornadoes that day from northern Texas to Nebraska. Two F4 tornadoes hit north of Oklahoma City near Dover and Cimarron City. Farther north, another F4 twister moved through Haysville, Kansas into the city of Wichita, where six people lost their lives.
Severe weather continued for the next three days, spawning a total of 136 tornadoes in 19 states.
May 3-6, 1999 Tornado Outbreak
It's hard to believe in the modern era that a tropical cyclone could kill more than 138,000 people, but that's what happened 15 years ago this week when Cyclone Nargis roared ashore in Myanmar, formerly known as Burma, on May 2, 2008. Unofficial death tolls were as high as 146,000. In the 20th and 21st centuries, only two storms on the planet had higher fatalities.
Cyclone Nargis was a Category 4 storm on the Saffir-Simpson scale, bringing 135-mph winds close to landfall. Its unusual track caused an unprecedented storm surge to rush inland on the low-lying Irrawaddy delta. The surge, reaching 12 feet as far as 25 miles from shore and extreme winds, obliterated 95 percent of homes on the delta. Myanmar's government was partly blamed for the large death toll, as few warnings or evacuations, and the government was slow to accept international aid. The storm traveled 100 miles into the low-lying delta before losing strength. Over 2 feet of rain fell near landfall, according to NASA.
Cyclone Nargis on May 1, 2008
One of the worst tornado outbreaks in U.S. history unfolded from the Gulf Coast states through the Northeast from April 25 through April 28, 2011, an event later dubbed the 2011 Super Outbreak. In those four days, 360 tornadoes were confirmed from Texas to New York, resulting in 321 deaths, 252 of which occurred in Alabama.
This is an April 30, 2011 file photo of tornado damage in Tuscaloosa, Ala., following an April 27, 2011 tornado. Monday, July 18 is the final day to apply for federal aid from the tornadoes that ravaged Alabama this past spring. Officials say about 86,000 tornado survivors already have registered for assistance with the Federal Emergency Management Agency, and the time to apply by phone or over the Internet runs out at the end of the day. (AP Photo/Dave Martin)
April 27 was the worst day of the outbreak, with four EF5 tornadoes touching down in the southern U.S.; however, one of the deadliest and most destructive tornadoes was an EF4. The Tuscaloosa-Birmingham tornado on April 27 was on the ground for 91 minutes, caused 60 fatalities and had peak winds of 190 mph. To be classified as an EF5 twister, winds must be at least 200 mph.
“For that kind of situation, you don’t recover in a year, you don’t recover in five years, and in some places people are still struggling today,” Alabama Broadcast Meteorologist James Spann told AccuWeather in 2019. Spann was live on air for severe weather coverage for 10 consecutive hours during the height of the outbreak. The 2011 Super Outbreak has been described as a “generational” event, meaning that a tornado outbreak of this magnitude only happens about once every 40 years. Similar outbreaks occurred in 1974 and 1932.
Spring is the season for weather whiplash. After high temperatures in the 80s just days before, snow fell over parts of the Northeast one year ago today, April 18-19, 2022. It piled up as high as 18 inches in Virgil, 15 miles northeast of Ithaca, and Bleecker, located in the Catskill Mountains. The combination of heavy snow and windy conditions led to more than 310,000 power outages across the Northeast.
Snow in State College, PA, on April 18, 2022
Many took to social media to express shock and dismay at having to witness so much snow at this point in April, more than halfway through the month after summerlike weather earlier in the week,
One person simply said, "Yuck."
At Penn State University’s campus, 3.3 inches of snow was measured, making it the latest in this season that 1 inch of snow has fallen since 1993. On early Tuesday morning, Binghamton, New York, reported 3 inches of snow in just one hour, an impressive hourly snowfall rate for a snowstorm regardless of the month. By Tuesday afternoon, Binghamton broke their daily and two-day April snow records.
After departing Southampton, England, on April 10, 1912, for its maiden voyage to New York, the "unsinkable" RMS Titanic struck an iceberg just before midnight 111 years ago on April 14, 1912.
The RMS Titanic sank during its maiden voyage on April 14, 1912. The portentous disaster has since captured the imaginations of historians and underwater explorers worldwide. (File Photo courtesy of National Archives)
Although the weather didn't directly sink the ship, the cold weather may have produced more icebergs than expected that day, and a glassy ocean under a strong high pressure system could have hidden them from view at night. These possibilities are explored in an article I wrote last year.
Recently, three different photographs have been vying for the title of the iceberg that caused the greatest nautical disaster in history. Given that 15,000 icebergs threaten shipping each year, the odds are against any of them being the one that sank the "unsinkable" ship.
Less than a week apart in April 1998, violent tornadoes devastated two southern United States cities, killing dozens and debunking the myth that tornadoes can't occur in major cities. The disasters occurred years before the smartphone and social media era; tornado warnings could only be received via television, radio, and tornado sirens.
APRIL 10, 1998: Mike Johnson looks over what is left of Rock Creek, AL. home 10 April that was destroyed after a tornado ripped through the southeast US. At least 26 people were killed and some 150 homes were destroyed. (STEVEN R. SCHAEFER/AFP via Getty Images)
On April 8, 1998, three significant tornadoes struck central Alabama, including one F5 twister that damaged buildings on the outskirts of Birmingham. The F5 tornado tracked over 30 miles from Tuscaloosa County into Jefferson County, lifting from the ground just short of downtown high rises -- and the Birmingham airport.
Fatalities climbed in the days after the outbreak to 41, with 32 killed by the F5 tornado. It was the worst twister in Alabama since 1977 and would be the worst until the 2011 super tornado outbreak. Matthew Seals, who lost his 8-year-old son to the F5 in Oak Grove, Alabama, is now an advocate for wearing helmets when sheltering from a tornado.
FILE - In this April 19, 1998 file photo, Meg Evans, right, hugs Mary Lloyd Pearson after seeing the damage done to St. Ann's Episcopal Church by a tornado in Nashville, Tenn., Since its founding 150 years ago, the church has survived fires, tornadoes and urban decline. To mark the milestone, the church's yearlong celebration of its anniversary will be highlighted June 27 by the visit of presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts-Schori of The Episcopal Church.
Just one week later, tragedy struck the South again when more than a dozen tornadoes touched down in central Tennessee. An F3 twister tore through downtown Nashville. While that tornado grabbed the media spotlight, an F5 tornado also touched down in rural Wayne County, sweeping homes from their foundations and throwing a pickup truck the length of a football field.
In downtown Nashville, windows were blown out of buildings, construction cranes were toppled, and 35 buildings were declared structurally unsound after heavy damage. The tornado was the first F2 or higher strength to hit a city's downtown area in over 20 years, and, along with the Birmingham tornado just a week prior, helped debunk the myth that strong tornadoes cannot hit cities.
Easter is a bit of a holiday weather oddity due to its date shifting around so much (it can occur between March 22 and April 25). Snow and winter weather often dominate the Easter headlines because, more often than not, Easter Sunday is a warm reminder that spring is on the way. One example is Binghamton, New York, where 6.1 inches of snow was measured on April 7, 1996. Explore more Easter weather history in this article.
Apr 7,1996; Binghamton, NY: 6.1 inches of Easter snow
Spring is also severe weather season and one major event stands out in Easter weather history. A widespread and deadly tornado outbreak affected the southeastern United States on Easter Sunday and Monday, April 12–13, 2020. The outbreak spawned more than 141 tornadoes and killed more than 30 people.
Hurricane Ian was the storm that defined the 2022 Atlantic hurricane season with communities across Florida still grappling with the aftermath of one of the most catastrophic weather events in the United States last year.
Hurricane Ian just before landfall on Sept. 28, 2022.
On Monday, April 3, the National Hurricane Center (NHC) released its final analysis of Hurricane Ian. When reanalyzing data from the monstrous hurricane, meteorologists found that it was stronger than previously thought, propelling Ian into the upper echelon of hurricane intensity. Take a deeper look at the history in this AccuWeather article.
TIROS 1, the first weather satellite, became operational on April 1, 1960 and transmitted the first live satellite photo of the planet from space.
Weather History: Apr 1,1960: TIROS 1, the first weather satellite, became operational. (Artist's conception)
Although TIROS 1 was only active for 78 days, it began a decades-long stretch of satellite data collection that continually improved into the real-time satellite images we use today.
The first television satellite picture from space on Apr 1,1960.
The EF1 tornado in Los Angeles on March 23, 2023, was a rare event, but according to TornadoArchive.com, Los Angeles has a surprisingly rich tornado history, with a number of F2 twisters touching down in the region over the years. Recently, however, only one EF0 twister has been recorded near the downtown area since 2005. The last F2 was March 1, 1983, while the last EF1 was on Jan. 19, 2010.
Los Angeles Tornado History 1680-2021
Editor's Note: The Storm Prediction Center adopted the "EF" scale on Feb. 1, 2007. Tornadoes before that date were rated with the "F" scale.
Hundreds of tornadoes have been recorded throughout February, including 195 major tornadoes of F3-F5 strength across the United States since 1680. The most recent significant tornado outbreak was Feb. 5 to Feb. 7, 2020, when 37 tornadoes, including seven EF2s, moved through the South.
A plot of tornado tracks between Feb. 1 and 28 between 1680 and 2021
In 2008, the "Super Tuesday Outbreak" killed more than 60 people after dropping 86 tornadoes, including five devastating EF4s in Arkansas, Tennessee, Kentucky, Mississippi and Alabama. The most powerful twister in February occurred on Feb. 21, 1971, and is the only F5 tornado recorded in the U.S. in February. That twister ripped from northeastern Louisiana into Mississippi on a 109.2-mile track, killing 47 people and injuring more than 500.
The "Leap Day Tornado Outbreak" on Feb. 29, 2012, spawned 42 tornadoes across seven states, including an EF4 that struck Harrisburg, Illinois. That twister killed eight and injured over 100 people.
Editor's note: The Storm Prediction Center adopted the "EF" scale on Feb. 1, 2007. Tornadoes before that date were rated with the "F" scale.
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