• Introduction
  

• Super Tornado Outbreak of April 3-4, 1974
  

• Selected U.S. City and State Extremes
  

• Additional Resources
  

Introduction

Across the U.S. early in April 1999, seven illegal immigrants from Mexico perished in mountains around San Diego County, California as a result of snowstorms, and 130 more were rescued. The snowstorm also caused a single engine plane to crash in which four persons were killed. Tornadoes in northwestern Louisiana on April 3-4th caused 6 fatalities in Benton, with 100 people injured and 500 made homeless. From April 1-15, 1999 there were 17 deaths due to tornadoes: 6 in Louisiana, 2 in Illinois, 7 in Ohio, 1 in Mississippi, and 1 in North Carolina.

The lack of precipitation across portions of the southeast this spring is starting to cause some concerns - in terms of drought. Current weekly drought, precipitation, and temperature analyses are available from DOC/NOAA/USDA Weekly Weather and Crop Bulletin.. Florida is one of the drier areas of the country, as wildfires again this spring have burned thousands of acres already this month. These archived satellite images show heat signatures (red spots) from areas of fire burning in the southeastern United States-- NOAA OSEI Satellite Imagery of fire-related phenomena (smoke, hot spots, burn scars). Florida is no stranger to wild fire problems--NCDC also produced a WWW report highlighting last year's (1998) fires in Florida-- Florida Wild Fires and Climate Extremes.

Elsewhere around the globe, in Africa, flooding hit portions of northern Malawi with about 2000 individuals in twenty villages affected. Drought is causing problems across portions of Somalia. In western Colombia, weeks of torrential rains caused two mudslides that killed at least five people and trapped (possibly killed) another 25. In northwest China's Qinghai province, more than 1000 lakes (which are the source of the Yellow river) have dried up because of deteriorating environmental factors and the lack of rain. Farmers in China's Shaanxi province say that the green wheat sprouts in their fields are a miracle at a time when people are worrying about withered crops during the long period of drought. Shaanxi had suffered from drought since October 1998. Farmers have used plastic sheeting to keep their seedlings from withering due to the lack of moisture. A good harvest is expected this year due to the application of the new technology. Details of this and other global extremes can be found at the following NOAA Special Global Summary for April 1999.

Tornado Outbreak of April 3-4, 1974

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NOAA Technical Report, "Tornado Outbreak of April 3-4, 1974: Synoptic Analysis"
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Satellite Images from the Report:

Selected U.S. City and State Extremes

Additional Resources

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