By Paul A. Tenkotte, Ph.D.
Special to NKyTribune
Part 2 of a three-part series on the region’s destructive tornadoes
It is truly amazing to watch the dance that nature performs throughout the year. Seasons change, autumn arrives, leaves fall, and animals prepare for winter. By spring, the earth suddenly awakens again, flowers bloom, the temperature warms, and thunderstorms brew. And all of it depends upon the tilt of the earth on its axis. In fact, if there were no tilt whatsoever, there would be no distinct seasons.
Another dance takes place with the earth’s wind and ocean currents, constantly attempting to attain a sense of equilibrium. In North America, dry, polar winds sweep across the Northern Plains, where farmers have long had a wry yet witty expression that “nothing lies between them and the North Pole other than a few barbed wire fences.”
Meanwhile, wet, warm Gulf of Mexico winds flow northward. Without major mountain ranges running from west to east to modulate the colliding air masses, this means that North America is especially vulnerable to seasonal weather clashes. In spring, the dance between the two extremes sometimes results in volatile, cyclonic storm systems called tornadoes, the worst of which can clock winds up to 300+ miles per hour. Because of this soupy mix, most tornadoes in the world occur in North America.
In Cincinnati and some parts of the Ohio River Valley, residents like to complain that “if you don’t like the weather, wait 24 hours and it will change.” The reason behind this is simple. Cincinnati lies along the boundary between two major climate systems, Humid Continental to the north (for example, Dayton, OH) and Humid Subtropical to the south (for example, Lexington, KY).
Major increases and decreases in temperature can occur within 24 hours or less, further making the Ohio River Valley susceptible to the development of storm systems.
By Tuesday, April 2, 1974, an unstable and unsettling weather pattern was emerging across middle America as cold, dry air from the north collided with a warmer, wet air mass from the Gulf of Mexico. Clashes of air advanced and receded. The dance became frenetic, and tornados developed, some of great intensity.
Measuring a tornado’s intensity is, of itself, a fascinating subject. Meteorologists Tetsuya “Ted” Fujita of the University of Chicago and Allen Pearson of the National Severe Storms Forecast Center collaborated in the early 1970s to develop the Fujita-Pearson scale. They ranked tornadoes according to the amount of damage produced, correlating them with presumed wind speeds. The resulting scale ranked tornadoes along a spectrum—F0 (light damage), F1 (moderate damage), F2 (considerable damage), F3 (severe damage), F4 (devastating damage), and F5 (incredible damage).
On April 3, 1974, weather conditions began to deteriorate in the late afternoon in the Ohio River Valley. Growing up in Park Hills, Kentucky, I recall ascending to the large hill behind our home to watch dark storm clouds moving into the western suburbs of Cincinnati to the north. We would not have imagined that by the next day, what was then the nation’s largest system of tornadoes (now the second-largest outbreak in the United States) would have occurred.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) of the U.S. Department of Commerce, in a report entitled “The Widespread Tornado Outbreak of April 3-4, 1974,” detailed the development and repercussions of the storm system. In all, the vast outbreak occurred “in an area from Chicago southward to the Gulf of Mexico and eastward almost to the Atlantic coast” (p. iv). According to the American National Red Cross, this immense tornadic event killed 335 people, injured 6,142, and resulted in losses to 27,590 families. Of the death tolls, Alabama (86) and Kentucky (77) fared the worst (p. 6). According to the National Weather Service 148 separate tornadoes occurred during the Super Outbreak of April 3-4, “of which 95 were rated F2 or stronger on the Fujita scale and 30 were F4 or F5” (https://www.weather.gov/iln/19740403).
On Wednesday, April 3, 1974, the first tornadoes of the day touched down in Georgia and Tennessee. At 3:40 pm Eastern Daylight Time (EDT), a tornado ripped through the Ohio River city of Brandenburg, Kentucky, southwest of Louisville. It left 31 people dead and immense devastation. At 4:37 pm EDT a tornado touched down in Louisville, causing 6 fatalities (including 3 from heart attacks).
The deadliest tornado of that Super Outbreak occurred in Xenia east of Dayton, Ohio. There, at about 4:40 pm EDT, an F5 tornado tore through downtown, as well as the Arrowhead and Windsor Park subdivisions. In its wake, 32 lay dead. The injury count was greater than 1,100. Over 1,000 homes were destroyed across a “damage path [that] varied in width from one-quarter to one-half mile” (NOAA, “Widespread Tornado Outbreak,” p. 8).
At about 5:30 pm EDT, another F5 tornado arose out of the skies near Rising Sun, Indiana. It crossed the Ohio River south into Boone County, Kentucky, causing extensive damage and cutting off power to the National Weather Service at the Greater Cincinnati Airport (Boone Co.) at 5:40 pm. A “Kentucky Post account described the roadway between Hebron and Taylorsport as a rubble path” (Jim Reis, “Pieces of the Past: 1974’s Deadly Twisters,” Kentucky Post, April 18, 2005, p. 4K).
The tornado then pounced across the river and pounded into the Cincinnati community of Sayler Park, lying on the north shore of the Ohio River. The unbelievable intensity of the tornado ripped apart houses as if they were matchsticks and uprooted massive trees. The suburban communities of Bridgetown, White Oak, Mack, Dent, Elmwood Place, Roselawn, Blue Ash, and Sharonville also suffered immense damage.
Although the April 3-4, 1974 Super Outbreak of tornadoes has since been surpassed by the 2011 Super Outbreak, the memories still remain strong fifty years later among its survivors and onlookers. Weather in North America can be tremendously destructive, especially during the spring and early summer months, as air masses collide and massive thunderstorms develop. Thankfully, the National Weather Service and other governmental and non-governmental agencies are better prepared now more than ever to trace and face the realities of severe weather events.
Paul A. Tenkotte, Ph.D. is Editor of the “Our Rich History” weekly series and Professor of History and Gender Studies at Northern Kentucky University (NKU). He also serves as Director of the ORVILLE Project (Ohio River Valley Innovation Library and Learning Enrichment), premiering in Summer 2024. ORVILLE is now recruiting authors for entries on all aspects of innovation in the Ohio River Watershed including: Cincinnati (OH) and Northern Kentucky; Ashland, Lexington, Louisville, Maysville, Owensboro and Paducah (KY); Columbus, Dayton, Marietta, Portsmouth, and Steubenville (OH); Evansville, Madison and Indianapolis (IN), Pittsburgh (PA), Charleston, Huntington, Parkersburg, and Wheeling (WV), Cairo (IL), and Chattanooga, Knoxville, and Nashville (TN). If you would like to be involved in ORVILLE, please contact Paul Tenkotte at tenkottep@nku.edu.
Very interesting. I was in Bloomington, IN at IU and we had nothing, maybe rain but I remember being so worried because I had friends living in Zenia and there were no cell phones then.
Thank you for this article, Dr. Paul. It brings back memories. I remember that afternoon as one with eerie purplish skies. My mother and I were driving home on Dixie Highway southbound, when suddenly traffic came to a halt, stranding us on the Dixie Highway overpass to I-75. We looked to our right (toward the north/northewest) and saw a gigantic tornado moving from left to right (west to east). I don’t recall the exact time, but it was probably the tornado that went through Hebron and Taylorsport, and from there over to Saylor Park. A scary and sad day for our region, indeed.
Looking for pictures of Mack, Ohio.. specifically South Road. I lived on Kildare Drive. Our home was completely destroyed. We lost everything. The two houses beside us were cut in two with some walls standing. not ours. My mother in law called us because she was afraid we left to be with her. She saved our lives. The only thing that was remotely standing was the furnace. I had some black/white airol
photos I let to someone. Now they are lost. Would love to see those imagines.
I would have never known this if my mother didn’t tell me about it today when I was concerned about the weather. Thank you for all the information.
I lost 3 friends that day I lived in Windsor Park, Xenia Oh