Palm Sunday 1965 - The Forgotten Super Outbreak

Published at : 18 Dec 2025

April 11th, 1965.
Its a beautiful sunny afternoon across northern Indiana and residents all across the state are beginning to venture outdoors to enjoy the pleasant spring weather after a long and brutal winter. None of them could have imagined that in just a few short hours they would be at the center of one of the worst tornado outbreaks in American history.

On April 11th, 1965, a catastrophic tornado outbreak would devastate the midwestern states of Iowa, Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, and Ohio, producing over 50 tornadoes and claiming the lives of 266 people, causing apocalyptic levels of destruction matched only by the 1925 Tri-state tornado and the 1974 and 2011 Super Outbreaks. In this video we will discuss the fascinating meteorology that caused this devastating and often overlooked tornado outbreak, the people it impacted, and the scientific breakthroughs that happened in its aftermath. This is the true story of the 1965 Palm Sunday Tornadoes: The Forgotten Super Outbreak.

F Scale explanations:
F0 Light Damage (40-72mph)
F1 Moderate Damage (73-112mph)
F2 Significant Damage (113-157mph)
F3 Severe Damage (158-206mph)
F4 Devastating Damage (207-260mph)
F5 Incredible Damage (261-318mph)

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Download the KMZ file I made for this tornado outbreak here:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Gk0gZV9i9ff0ffwBAsfL-neGX7_0r-ZY/view?usp=sharing

Sources:
https://journals.ametsoc.org/view/journals/mwre/98/1/1520-0493_1970_098_0029_pstoa_2_3_co_2.xml
https://web.archive.org/web/20190724053210/http://www.islandnet.com/~see/weather/events/1965palmsun_torn.htm
https://www.weather.gov/iwx/1965_palmsunday_50
https://www.weather.gov/lot/Palm_Sunday_Outbreak
https://www.weather.gov/grr/1965PalmSundayTornado
https://tornadoarchive.com/home/
https://youtu.be/yeb2nMo64t8?si=8fhH4z3H7smv1I7j
https://youtu.be/40x6PSviQRA?si=q5_xDmOASXUyvxci
https://swco-ir.tdl.org/collections/6b918460-3fac-4f95-a51f-84dc8e625306
https://www.weather.gov/ind/palmsuntor
https://www.kpcnews.com/news/latest/newssun/article_432033d2-9908-5693-ad1c-f481821c2626.html
https://stormstalker.wordpress.com/2013/01/05/1965-palm-sunday/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1965_Palm_Sunday_tornado_outbreak
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_tornadoes_in_the_1965_Palm_Sunday_tornado_outbreak
https://palmsundaytornadoes.blogspot.com/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YGrhwlYSWUU&t=2s

All non-licensed clips used for fair use commentary, criticism, and educational purposes. See Hosseinzadeh v. Klein, 276 F.Supp.3d 34 (S.D.N.Y. 2017); Equals Three, LLC v. Jukin Media, Inc., 139 F. Supp. 3d 1094 (C.D. Cal. 2015).

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