The Notorious April 1965 Palm Sunday Tornado Outbreak

April is a month that has featured numerous tornado outbreaks in the U.S.  Palm Sunday mainly occurs in April and that name has been associated with a few tornado outbreaks over the years. The ‘Palm Sunday Tornadoes” of 1965 were especially notable since the event impacted many states and was destructive and deadly.

Just for reference, the table below was the method of categorizing tornadoes at that time (original Fujita Scale).

Meteorological Conditions – April 11, 1965

Meteorologists knew this would be a significant severe weather day even if they weren’t aware just how impactful it would be. At 7 a.m. an area of low pressure continued to intensify over the northern Great Plains and was moving eastward. A strong flow of warm, moist air rushed from the Gulf of Mexico while cold air was streaming down behind a cold front that extended southwest of the low and into the Rockies. The warm front extended eastward to Illinois and Indiana. A strong jet stream aloft stretched from the Pacific Coast to New England and it went right over the northern Plains and Great Lakes to aid in intensifying thunderstorms.

A late-day surface weather map from April 11, 1965, showing low pressure and its attending fronts. NWS-Public Domain

At that time, a Severe Local Storms unit (SELS) issued a statement indicating that tornadoes were possible from northeast Missouri Illinois, and Indiana.

In those days, there weren’t tornado watches like we have now but SELS issued a tornado forecast from northern Illinois to extreme southern Wisconsin. That forecast was issued at 1 p.m. but there had already been two tornado touchdowns at 12:45 in Iowa. One touched down and intensified rapidly into an (F4) damaging over 20 farms. One man near Lowden, Iowa was stuck by debris and died about a month later.

Trail of Destruction Begins

(Illinois and Wisconsin)

As the day moved past 3 p.m. the tornadoes had their sights set on Illinois and Wisconsin. around 3:20 pm a tornado touched down west of Jefferson, Wisconsin, and headed to the northeast through mainly uninhabited locations. As it reached Route 16 it flung cars off of the road and crushed three people to death. The tornado then demolished a house. Meanwhile, another tornado formed in McHenry County, Illinois and it continued to destroy the southwest area of Crystal Lake. It then came across the southern side of town and destroyed several subdivisions!

It tore apart the Lake Plaza Shopping Center In the Colby’s Home Estates, 155 homes were struck and 45 were demolished.

Unfortunately, equipment like Doppler Radar and the methods of communication were primitive compared to what we have today. The U.S. Weather Bureau in Chicago issued a tornado warning for the Crystal Lake area but the tornado struck within two minutes of that warning!

A tornado wiped out a house in Crystal Lake, Illinois on April 11, 1965, Both residents of the house were killed. NWS Photo – Public Domain.

At 4:00 pm a tornado touched down near Saint Charles. This tornado was warned in a more timely manner since it was closer to Chicago (their office had more resources). It did damage twelve homes after crossing Route 30.

Indiana and Michigan 

After a brief lull in the action, the severe weather returned with a vengeance! Around 4:35 p.m. a line of severe thunderstorms extended from Wisconsin to central Illinois and was racing eastward. SELS issued a tornado forecast for northern Indiana, northwest Ohio, and southeast Michigan.

Just before 6 p.m., thunderstorms turned surly over northwest Indiana and a tornado touched down in Starke County. The tornado crossed US Route 30 and set its eyes on Koontz Lake. One hundred vacation cottages were severely damaged. Unfortunately, a man in one of the cottages was lifted into the air and his dead body was found about 600 feet away.

The tornado demolished a high school while crossing US Route 31 between La Paz and Lakeville. Next up was Wyatt, Indiana. Some people reported that the sky changed its color from black to green and they sensed that a tornado was approaching. Many fled to their basements to ride out the tornado. The twister tore through Main Street in Wyatt and destroyed twenty homes. There were ten deaths reported from Koontz Lake to Wyatt.

This was another case of a warning issued too late. The South Bend  Weather Bureau Office issued a tornado warning a mere two minutes before the tornado struck Koontz Lake. The South Bend. That office was getting their information from Chicago by telephone.

At 6 p.m. The South Bend Office was receiving reports of tornadoes near the towns of Groveton and Argos. The weather observer thre issued a Tornado Warning for Saint Joseph, Marshall, Elkhart, and Kosciusko Counties in Indiana.

At the Elkhart Truth Newspaper, there was a reporter named Paul Huffman who had been receiving weather bulletins all day and h had just heard about the recent warnings. He left his office, got into his car, and headed to Goshen where tornadoes were expected.

He took a camera with him and he happened to take pictures of a tornado that struck Goshen. One was a double funnel. The twin tornadoes then ripped through the town of Dunlap where it destroyed most of the Midway Trailer Park where ten people perished. At the Dunlap Airport, planes were flipped upside down with the wings stripped. One of the wings was found thirty-five miles away!

A tornado wiped out a trailer park in Dunlap, Indiana, on April 11, 1965, NWS Photo – Public Domain.

Behind the twin tornadoes, another tornado devastated farms in the Amish community and it ripped through Shore and Rainbow Lake producing close to (F5) damage!

A rare (for the time) photo of twin (f4) tornadoes near Goshen, Indiana on April 11, 1965. Photo Credit -NWS from Paul Huffman

It was all too much for the U.S. Weather Bureau Offices. At 6:50 p.m. The South Bend Office issued the following statement.

Reports of tornadoes and funnel clouds have become so numerous that it is impossible to keep track of them. Warnings should therefore exist throughout the central northern portion of Indiana. The problems have been intensified by telephones being out in many areas and it is impossible to notify many people.

In western Lenawee County, Michigan, about fifty people were attending Palm Sunday church services at the Manitou Beach Baptist Church.  Churchgoers knew about the threat of tornadoes but little did they know about the disaster That was about to happen. Here’s a summary from NWS Northern Indiana.

As the service was nearing its end, the rumbling sound that had been distracting the parishoners grew deafeningly loud. The stained glass windows shattered. People began screaming in their surprise and terror. Plaster rained down on them as mothers grabbed their children and everybody began pushing each other into the aisles. The shrieking wind blew the church doors open, forcing the people inside to bend over to nearly a ninety degree angle as they fought the wind, rain, hail, and debris in order to reach the stairs to the basement. Half of them never made it. The church folded and collapsed upon them, burying over two dozen people in the rubble.

Another tornado came through Manitou Beach but there was nothing much left to destroy. Fortunately, the tornadoes lifted southwest of Detroit.

Continuing to be behind the 8-ball, the Fort Wayne Office issued the following statement.

The Weather Bureau radar at Baer Field shows a strong hook echo about five miles west of Berne Indiana and moving eastward. Residents in the Berne area should take immediate precautions for personal safety for a strong possibility of a tornado in the next 30 to 60 minutes.

The tornado clipped the north side of Berne about six minutes after that statement was sent out. The Fort Wayne office had no idea that an F4 tornado had already been on the ground for twenty-five miles in Grant County and for thirty-five miles before it finally reached Berne. Twenty-nine people had died and nearly nine hundred were injured when the Fort Wayne office sent out that message.

To make matters worse the Fort Wayne Office issued the following statement at 9:20 p.m.

Attention WOMO Please use emergency action notification signal. Marion Indiana reported through the Fort Wayne signal department at 9:07 PM EST that three tornadoes had struck the city of Marion with extensive damage. The Veterans Administration Hospital was one area hit. Request for ambulance assistance has been requested from Muncie and Anderson. The Fort Wayne Weather Bureau places these counties under alert for eastward movement that struck Marion. These counties are Wells Adams Blackford and Jay Counties. Residents in these counties should remain on alert for the next 60 minutes.

Again, I will refer to a summary published by the NWS in Northern Indiana.

The tornadoes Fort Wayne was warning for had actually hit Marion a full hour and twenty minutes earlier. Apparently the Fort Wayne weather observer thought that the report he received from Marion was saying that the tornadoes had just occurred. The Fort Wayne observer then sent a message to the Columbus Ohio weather office stating that a tornado had hit Marion at 9:07pm, and the Columbus weather office then issued its own statement with that same erroneous information. In reality the storm had hit Marion around 8pm. At the time of Fort Wayne's warning, the line of storms on radar was well east of Marion, extending from Paulding and Van Wert counties into Adams and Jay counties.

At 9:30 pm the Fort Wayne office lost power and was out of service for an hour. By the time the office got its electricity back, the storms were well east into Ohio.

Ohio

In northwest Ohio, a severe thunderstorm produced a tornado that struck the northwest section of Toledo. Close to (F5) damage occurred in the Creekside Addition as fifty homes were destroyed! A tornado lifted a bus on the Toledo-Detroit Expressway and it slammed on the highway killing four people. Cars and boats were lifted out of the water near Lake Erie’s western shore and slammed into buildings. There was never a warning issued for that tornado!

A devastating tornado produced (F4) damage on the southwest side of Toledo, Ohio, on April 11, 1965. NWS-Public Domain.  

Just past 10 pm, a tornado derailed fifty-three cars of a sixty-eight-unit train in Shelby County, Ohio. Things got even worse later farther to the east. An (F5) tornado killed seven residents of Pittsfield. The destruction of that town was “total” according to the Cleveland Weather Office.

Summary

Here is a list of the tornadoes, with statistics and damage.

April 12 event

This devastating event resulted in 271 fatalities and over 3400 injuries! Total Damage was an incredible 600 million dollars (nearly 2 billion in 2024).

The event led to groundbreaking tornado research, initiated by Dr. Ted Fujita from the University of Chicago. A storm survey National Weather Service Storm Survey, formulated and eventually instituted a list of recommendations to revamp the entire system of tornado identification (including radar) and communication (both internally and externally

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