May 9, 2003
At 3:15 PM, what was probably an F1 tornado touched down briefly near Arvonia, Buckingham County, Virginia. One man was killed when his house was crushed by a large tree.

May 6, 2003
Just before midnight, several tornadoes touched down in southern Illiniois. One of them swept across Pulaski County, destroying 40 homes, and causing one death and about 40 injuries. A man died when the chimney of his house collapsed on him while he was protecting his young son. Between Mermet and Hilleman, Massick County, a 65-year-old woman was found dead in a ravine, 100 yards from the site of her trailer. Her car was thrown 200 feet. The wreckage of the trailer was wrapped around two tree trunks.

May 4, 2003
The late afternoon of Sunday, May 4, produced one of the deadliest outbreaks(37 deaths) in many years. Initial reports indicated as many as 80 tornadoes touched down in eight states, putting the outbreak in the top ten of all time. Many were wide, long-track tornadoes that were well- documented by stormchasers. West and north of Kansas City, one member of a damaging family of tornadoes caused a death in northern Wyandotte County, KS. In southeast Kansas and southwest Missouri, a swarm of large, intense tornadoes produceed three major damage track. Hundreds of homes, dozens of farms, and several entire towns were wiped out. The northern track began near McCune, Crawford County, KS, and moved northeast, killing three people before crossing into Barton County, Missouri, where one person was killed at Liberal. Three more people were killed as the town of Stockton, Cedar County, Missouri was virtually destroyed. The middle storm track caused three deaths near Columbus, Cherokee County, Kansas, and two deaths near Carl Junction, Missouri. The southern- most track began southwest of Pierce City, and devastated that small town, with three deaths in the area. Further to the east-northeast, death and destruction hit near Clever, Marionville, and Battlefield. The massive tornado mercifully spared the city of Springfield.
It will be a while until the National Weather Service publishes detailed storm surveys and can finalize an accurate tornado count in this area. The documentation will appear in the update to Signficant Tornadoes. A preliminary map of the tornado tracks in the Kansas City area has been posted by the Kansas City/Pleasant Hill National Weather Service office and can be found here
Intense tornadoes occurred at night in western Tennessee. The deadliest tornado of the outbreak swept across Madison County, Tennessee, devastating the downtown area of Jackson. Eleven people were killed in the county, two at Jackson, and 9 in the town of Denmark, 12 miles southwest of Jackson. On January 17th, 1999, 6 people died in a tornado that swept across the southern edge of Jackson.
Our sympathies go out to all victims and survivors of these violent tornadoes.

March 27, 2003
A line of thunderstorms spawned about a half dozen small tornadoes in south Florida. One of them did about $13 million in F1 and F2 damage to homes in the Liberty City area north of Miami. One person was killed, and about a dozen others had minor injuries.

March 18-20, 2003
The first outbreak of 2003 produced scattered tornadoes from Texas to Georgia. The Texas tornadoes, on the 18th, were caught on film by several experienced storm chasers. In the early morning hours of the 20th(5:00 AM), the tornadoes turned deadly in Georgia. Six people were killed as a family of intense tornadoes swept across Mitchell and Worth counties in Georgia. More than 50 homes were destroyed at the south edge of Camilla, Mitchell County, with 4 people killed, and more than 100 injured. Some of those homes were also hit just three years ago by a tornado that killed 11 people at Camilla on February 14th, 2000. Two more died as they were thrown 200 yards with the debris of their mobile home, southwest of Sylvester, Worth County. Another death may have occurred in a mobile home near Tony, Madison County, Alabama.

The most significant tornado story in early 2003 originated in the central African country of Congo. World news organizations proclaim that a tornado killed 164 people and injured 1700 others in Bandundu Province at 11 PM, Sunday evening, February 2nd. One report suggested that the path length was about 100 miles.

It is very unlikely that this event was a true tornado. There may never be enough wind shear and instability to produce a long track tornado near the equator. The Congo Health Ministry used the word tornado. However, locally, the word tornado means "violent squall that blows out of the front of a thunderstorm".

In the opinion of many US tornado experts, the event was probably a wet microbust that uprooted hundreds of shallow rooted tropical forest trees. These trees would have then crushed the frail homes of Congo residents.

• April 11, 1896
  Destructive thunderstorms swept across central Texas producing two killer tornadoes, both at night. A twelve-year-old boy died in one of five homes destroyed at the south edge of Colorado City in Mitchell County. At least one woman was killed in he rural home southwest of Cottonwood in Callahan County. There were other deaths across central Texa that may have been tornado related.

• April 15, 1896
  An early season F3 tornado wiped out a half dozen farms at 3 AM near Faulkton, South Dakota. Two children died in one farmhouse.

• April 20, 1896
  In Sandusky County, Ohio, a violent F4 tornado "crept along the ground like a mammoth rock, and smoke puffed at the top like an engine." At least five homes were leveled to the ground at Booktown. Nineteenth century newspapers could always be counted on for unique and unusual descriptions of the tornado funnel.

• April 24, 1896
  In a brief touchdown at Salem, Roanoke County, Virginia, a tornado destroyed a bowling alley and a home. Three of the eight members of a family in one home were killed.

• April 25, 1896
  A half-mile-wide, violent tornado cut a swath across Cloud, Clay and Washington Counties in Kansas. At least nine people, possibly eleven, died, all in Clay County as 27 farm homes were destroyed. Newspapers reported that "everything was leveled as if a roller had passed over it," and the body of a dead child was reportedly carried for a half mile.

• May 7, 1896
  Pieces of a South Dakota farmhouse near Clark were carried for two miles. One woman was killed and ten other people were injured in the home.

• May 15, 1896
  This tragic day began with the death of an elderly man in his home at the hands of a 4 AM tornado in McPherson County, Kansas. The major activity was in the Red River area of Texas and Oklahoma. Three of the four members of one tornado family caused deaths and great destruction. The first damaged or destroyed 22 homes southwest of Denton, Texas, killing two people. Three more died north of Denton at the hands of the second member of the tornado family. The third member was among the most intensely devastating tornadoes in the nineteenth century. The funnel seemed to enter its shrinking stage as it turned to its left and cut across the west side of Sherman. At least fifty homes were destroyed, twenty of them completely obliterated. There were multiple deaths in seventeen families. A trunk lid with the owner's name on it was carried for 35 miles. Many bodies were found a quarter mile from homesites cleaned of every stick of debris. The death toll was at least 73. A new thunderstorm spawned a tornado in Bryan County, killing four members of a family near Blue.

• May 17, 1896
  This unusual day produced killer tornadoes in Kentucky and Kansas, a rare combination. An early morning funnel described as "an enormous blue haze" obliterated a house near Elva, Kentucky, killing all five members of one family. At 5 PM, another of the nineteenth century's most intensely violent tornadoes touched down near Palmer, Kansas, and lifted a hundred miles to the east northeast, near Falls City, Nebraska. Up to a mile wide, it devastated the Kansas towns of Seneca, Oneida, and Sabetha, leaving the farms in between "as bare as the prairie." The tornado may have been almost two miles wide as it passed near Reserve, Kansas. The death total was 25.

• May 24, 1896
  Moving to the east, this F4 tornado passed just north of DesMoines, Iowa at about 11 PM. Six, possibly seven, members of one family were killed at the north edge of Valeria. They were caught in the open, running to the storm cellar. Five others died in a nearby home. A steel railroad rail was reportedly driven 15 feet into the ground. The death toll was at least 21.

• May 25, 1896
  This week of almost continuous strong and violent tornado activity (perhaps the most violent single week of tornado activity in US history) continued with a 1 AM, F4 tornado in Ogle County, Illinois. A mother and three children died as a home was leveled south of Egan. A half hour later, three more died and six were injured in a home south of Davis Junction, Illinois. The late afternoon devastated parts of central and eastern Michigan. At 6 PM, in Tuscola County, Michigan, a home in which a funeral was taking place was destroyed. The thirty people in attendance ran safely to a ditch before the home was "lifted and dashed to the ground." A man in a nearby home was killed by debris as he watched the events from his window. Two hours later, two people were killed as thirty homes were destroyed at Mount Clemons, Michigan. At 9 PM, the third F5 tornado of the year began leveling homes near Ortonville, Oakwood, and Thomas, Michigan. Nine people died in a single home at Ortonville. On the ground for thirty miles, the funnel killed at least forty-seven people.

• May 27, 1896
  What may have been the first tornado of the day killed a woman near Bellflower, Missouri. At 3:15 PM, three students died and sixteen were injured in the destruction of the Dye School in Audrain County, Missouri. A few minutes later, the same tornado killed one student and injured nineteen at the Bean Creek School. At 6:15 PM, two children died on a farm in Osage County, Missouri. At about 6:30 PM, two tornadoes touched down almost simultaneously from separate storms. One leveled entire farms near New Minden, Hoyleton, Richview, and Irvington, Illinois. The other was the third deadliest tornado in US history, taking a total of at least 255 lives. In Saint Louis, Missouri, people died in homes, factories, saloons, hospitals, mills, railroad yards, and churches, as a half-mile-wide swath was cut across the center of the city. At least 137 people died at Saint Louis. Other people living on shanty boats may have perished in the Mississippi River, but were not counted because their bodies were washed downstream. At East Saint Louis, Illinois, the funnel had narrowed but may have also intensified. Devastation there was more complete, and 118 people were killed. Twenty seven more people died in other Illinois tornadoes this day.