1936 Tupelo–Gainesville tornado outbreak
|name=. Remove this parameter; the article title is used as the name by default.|duration= parameter from the infobox header or from another 'History' box instead.Weather map of the storm complex over Canada that would spawn the tornado outbreak in the Southeastern U.S, including the two tornadoes that would hit Tupelo, Mississippi and Gainesville, Georgia on April 6, 1936. | |
| Meteorological history | |
|---|---|
| Duration | April 5–6, 1936 |
| Tornado outbreak | |
| Tornadoes | ≥14 |
| Maximum rating | F5 tornado |
| Duration | 18 hours |
| Overall effects | |
| Fatalities | ≥454 |
| Injuries | >2,498 |
| Damage | ≥$15.9 million (1936 USD) ≥$369 million (2025 USD) |
| Areas affected | Southern United States |
On April 5–6, 1936, an outbreak of at least fourteen tornadoes struck the Southeastern United States, killing at least 454 people (with 419 of those deaths caused by just two tornadoes) and injuring at least 2,500 others. Over two hundred people died in Georgia alone, making it the deadliest disaster ever recorded in the state.
Although the outbreak is often centered on the violent tornadoes in Tupelo, Mississippi (with an estimated F5 rating), and Gainesville, Georgia (estimated F4 rating), there were other destructive tornadoes in the cities of Columbia, Tennessee; Acworth, Georgia; and Anderson, South Carolina. One long-track F4 tornado killed six people in rural parts of Tennessee, and two other long-track tornadoes (rated F3) killed an additional thirteen people in southern Tennessee and northern Alabama. Another pair of F3 tornadoes touched down in Mississippi, claiming an additional eight lives.
This was the second deadliest tornado outbreak in U.S. history (after that of the Tri-state tornado in 1925) and the only one in which two separate tornadoes killed more than 200 people each.