Tornado outbreak of April 12, 1945

On April 12, 1945, a tornado outbreak occurred in the Midwestern United States, producing numerous strong tornadoes and killing at least 128 people and injuring over 1,000 others; however, the concurrent death of President Franklin D. Roosevelt overshadowed news of the outbreak. On July 5, 1945, the United States Weather Bureau documented this entire outbreak as a single wind event, not a tornado or series of tornadoes, which killed 119 people and caused $2.65 million (1945 USD) in damage. This report was later corrected on December 1, 1945, when the report was corrected to be a series of tornadoes. J. L. Baldwin, a meteorologist at the United States Weather Bureau office in Washington, D.C., later stated that, “these storms made April 12 the worst single day of tornado disaster[s] in the history of Oklahoma.”

Confirmed tornadoes

All ratings on the Fujita scale were made by Thomas P. Grazulis, a tornado expert, and are classified as unofficial ratings since official ratings for tornadoes began in 1950. Grazulis only documented tornadoes he considered to be significant (F2+), so the true number of tornadoes for this outbreak is most likely higher. The National Weather Service in Norman, Oklahoma noted the Antlers, Oklahoma tornado was F5 on the Fujita scale, which makes that tornado’s rating an official/unofficial rating, since it is a rating mentioned by the National Weather Service before 1950.

Antlers–One Creek–Nashoba, Oklahoma

This violent tornado, commonly known as the Antlers Tornado, devastated a third of Antlers, with over 600 structures being destroyed and over 700 others being damaged, as it crossed from the southwest corner to the northeast corner of the town. Some portions of Antlers were completely swept clean of all debris. In total, the tornado killed 69 people, injured 353 others, and caused $1.5 million (1945 USD) in damage. Despite the extremely large death toll and extreme destruction in Antlers, the tornado was barely reported, due to the death of the sitting U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt.