April 19 The outbreak occurred when the
warm front of a deep
storm system moved north and east out of
Missouri. April 19 started off cool and skies were overcast ahead of the warm front. Meteorologists were trying to figure out if the warm front would move into Illinois that afternoon. As the day wore on, temperatures warmed,
dew points rose, and thunderstorms started to explode in
Iowa during the mid-afternoon hours. Although there were some doubts on specifics, the potential significance of the outbreak was rather foreseeable, with
storm chasers traveling from the
Great Plains and the
Storm Prediction Center issuing a high risk early on.
Illinois A total of 33 tornadoes hit
Illinois before spreading west and south into
Missouri, and
Iowa and east and north into
Wisconsin,
Michigan, and
Indiana on Friday, April 19. The town of
Decatur was hit by a large F3 tornado, as were the towns of
Urbana and
Ogden. Major damage and injuries occurred in all three locations, and one person was killed in Ogden.
Indiana In Indiana, 21 tornadoes were produced as the cold front moved into the area during the evening hours. Temperatures had warmed well into the 70's and lower 80's (20 to 26 °C) before the storms hit. Five people were injured in
Morgan County.
April 20 One of Canada's most prolific tornado events struck
Ontario. A vigorous branch of the
jet stream from the Pacific Ocean combined with rich low-level moisture kept the storm system rolling, spinning off more tornadoes in the
Southeast. One tornado hit
Carroll County, Mississippi, killing teenager Dexter Forman when a tree fell on his mobile home. Another tornado did massive damage to
Berea, Kentucky, but no one was killed.
April 21 A final tornado was produced by the first system in southern
Quebec. The outbreak across the south-central U.S. on the 21st was produced by a different weather system. Several tornadoes raked through eastern
Oklahoma and western
Arkansas that Sunday evening and Monday morning, killing a father and son in
St. Paul, Arkansas as well as two children in
Fort Smith. Shortly after the outbreak, the local
CBS affiliate in Fort Smith, Arkansas,
KFSM-TV, produced ''Sunday's Fury'', a video production outlining the sequence of events, including the tornado siren failure from downed phone lines that the system relied upon, that surrounded the Fort Smith tornado that day. The tornado that struck Fort Smith was a half-mile wide and hit portions of the city's Garrison Avenue and neighborhoods on both sides of the
Arkansas River. ==Confirmed tornadoes==