On This Date: An Overshadowed Tornado Outbreak In 2011
April 16, 2011, 14 years ago today, was the third consecutive day in a tornado outbreak that raked across the South. On that day, alone, 58 tornadoes tore through parts of the Carolinas, Virginia and the mid-Atlantic.
Thirty of those tornadoes tore through North Carolina, the most on record for any day in the Tar Heel State.
Six of those were rated EF3, including a 67-mile long twister that tore through the heart of Raleigh, claiming six lives and injuring 103. Another EF3 tornado on the ground for over an hour killed 2 and injured 176 in eastern North Carolina, including part of the city of Fayetteville.
The deadliest single tornado claimed a dozen lives in Bertie County, North Carolina, that afternoon. Yet another EF3 twister killed two in Gloucester County, Virginia.
In all, 26 people died from six of the tornadoes on April 16. The three-day April 14-16 outbreak spawned 178 tornadoes, with 38 killed and at least 588 injured. Total damage from the multi-day outbreak was estimated by NOAA at $2.9 billion.
So, what could have possibly overshadowed such a deadly, damaging, widespread outbreak?
Less than two weeks later, the late April 2011 Super Outbreak spawned 199 tornadoes in one day on April 27 and 349 twisters in 72 hours from April 25-28. This rash of tornadoes killed 321, injured another 2,775 and caused an estimated $14.5 billion damage, the nation's costliest severe thunderstorm event since 1980.
This all lead to the most tornadoes of any single month on record. April 2011's 758 tornadoes were over 200 more than any other previous month (May 2003: 542).
Jonathan Erdman is a senior meteorologist at weather.com and has been covering national and international weather since 1996. Extreme and bizarre weather are his favorite topics. Reach out to him on Bluesky, X (formerly Twitter) and Facebook.
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