And while big tornadoes are not an every-year occurrence in Mississippi and Alabama, they’re by no means unheard of. The outbreak that tore up those states was, however, exceptional in terms of just how many EF3+ tornadoes there were, and for a death toll of around 330, which is bigger than the infamous 1974 Super Tuesday outbreak. So this spring, we’ve had the “worst” tornado outbreak in almost 40 years, and one of the deadliest single tornadoes in at least that long (Joplin). And that’s not even counting the North Carolina tornadoes that killed over 20 people a few weeks before the MS/AL storms.
}:-)4
It’s definitely been a bad year severe weather-wise, but I wonder how much of the death toll is impacted by population growth in these areas.