Tornadoes of 1897

Grazulis's record has 47 significant tornadoes in the United States in 1897, which killed 58 people and injured 237. 3 were rated F4 or above. Before 1950 the record is Thomas P. Grazulis’s list of significant tornadoes: those rated F2 or stronger, and weaker ones that killed somebody.

1896 1898

The rating scale

Tracks are drawn in the color of the rating. Grazulis rated these tornadoes on the Fujita scale decades after the fact, from written accounts of the damage. The scale rates the damage rather than measuring the wind: the speeds are what that damage is taken to imply.

F040 to 72 mph
Light damage. Surface peeled off some roofs, gutters and siding damaged, branches broken, shallow-rooted trees pushed over.
F173 to 112 mph
Moderate damage. Roofs badly stripped, mobile homes overturned or badly damaged, exterior doors lost, windows broken.
F2113 to 157 mph
Considerable damage. Roofs torn off well-built houses, frame homes shifted on their foundations, mobile homes destroyed, large trees snapped or uprooted, cars lifted off the ground.
F3158 to 206 mph
Severe damage. Whole stories of well-built houses destroyed, large buildings badly damaged, trains overturned, trees debarked, heavy cars lifted and thrown.
F4207 to 260 mph
Devastating damage. Well-built houses leveled, structures with weak foundations moved some distance, cars thrown and large missiles generated.
F5261 to 318 mph
Incredible damage. Strong frame houses swept off their foundations, car-sized missiles thrown more than 100 meters, steel-reinforced concrete badly damaged, high-rise buildings deformed.
Unrated
Grazulis gave no rating: the surviving account records a tornado without enough about the damage to rate it. Almost all of these are before 1880.

The violent tornadoes of 1897

The deadliest of 1897

By state

Filed under the state each path begins in.

State	Significant tornadoes
Texas	11
Kansas	7
Minnesota	7
Arkansas	5
Georgia	2
Oklahoma	2
New York	2
Alabama	2
Louisiana	1
Indiana	1
Mississippi	1
Iowa	1
Michigan	1
Illinois	1
Colorado	1
New Jersey	1
Kentucky	1

Every significant tornado of 1897

Times are local standard time, where the record has one. Blank cells are not recorded.

January 2 3 tornadoes

Date	Time	Rating	Where	Path (mi)	Width (yd)	Deaths	Injuries
January 2	3:45 PM CST	F3	Mooringsport, LA	6.0	300	5	21
January 2	7:00 PM CST	F2	Benton, AR	9.7	100	1	10
January 2	7:00 PM CST	F2	Cameron's Mill/N Texarkana, AR			1

February 21 1 tornado

Date	Time	Rating	Where	Path (mi)	Width (yd)	Deaths	Injuries	Damage
February 21	9:00 AM EST	F2	W Benwood/NE Brazil, IN	3.8	400

March 5 1 tornado

Date	Time	Rating	Where	Path (mi)	Width (yd)	Deaths	Injuries	Damage
March 5	4:00 AM CST	F2	Hope, AR		50

March 6 1 tornado

Date	Time	Rating	Where	Path (mi)	Width (yd)	Deaths	Injuries	Damage
March 6		F2	NE Talbotton, GA

March 18 5 tornadoes

Date	Time	Rating	Where	Path (mi)	Width (yd)	Injuries
March 18		F2	S Ennis, TX
March 18		F2	Caddo Mills, TX
March 18	5:00 PM CST	F2	Stephenville, TX	5.1	100
March 18	8:20 PM CST	F2	Estelle, TX			4
March 18	8:50 PM CST	F2	Plano, TX

March 19 1 tornado

Date	Time	Rating	Where	Path (mi)	Width (yd)	Deaths	Injuries	Damage
March 19		F2	Utica, MS			4	1

March 22 1 tornado

Date	Time	Rating	Where	Path (mi)	Width (yd)	Deaths	Injuries	Damage
March 22	8:30 AM EST	F2	Arlington, GA	1.4	100	8	23

March 28 3 tornadoes

Date	Time	Rating	Where	Path (mi)	Width (yd)	Deaths	Injuries
March 28	2:30 PM CST	F2	University of Texas/Austin, TX		50
March 28	4:00 PM CST	F3	W El Campo, TX		100	1	2
March 28	4:30 PM CST	F2	Calvert, TX	1.2	100		5

March 30 1 tornado

Date	Time	Rating	Where	Path (mi)	Width (yd)	Deaths	Injuries	Damage
March 30	5:30 PM CST	F4	Chandler, OK	17.7	800	14	40

March 31 2 tornadoes

Date	Time	Rating	Where	Path (mi)	Width (yd)	Deaths	Injuries	Damage
March 31	1:30 PM CST	F3	Parnell Springs/SE New Edinburg/SE Star City to S Grady, AR	35.3	500	7	30
March 31	3:30 PM CST	F2	N Tuckerman, AR	5.1	100		3

April 7 1 tornado

Date	Time	Rating	Where	Path (mi)	Width (yd)	Deaths	Injuries	Damage
April 7	8:30 PM CST	F2	E Dallas/S Mesquite, TX	4.9	150		3

April 22 4 tornadoes

Date	Time	Rating	Where	Path (mi)	Width (yd)	Deaths	Injuries
April 22	8:45 PM CST	F2	N McFarland, KS	14.8	50	1	7
April 22	10:00 PM CST	F2	W Newton/N Putnam, KS	11.7	50		3
April 22	10:00 PM CST	F3	W Newton/N Putnam, KS	12.3	50		3
April 22	10:30 PM CST	F2	S McLains/N Annelly, KS	6.4	100

April 23 1 tornado

Date	Time	Rating	Where	Path (mi)	Width (yd)	Deaths	Injuries	Damage
April 23	8:50 PM CST	F2	SW Amamosa, IA	5.0	100

April 24 1 tornado

Date	Time	Rating	Where	Path (mi)	Width (yd)	Deaths	Injuries	Damage
April 24	5:30 PM EST	F2	Omer, MI	1.0	50		6

May 8 1 tornado

Date	Time	Rating	Where	Path (mi)	Width (yd)	Deaths	Injuries	Damage
May 8	2:30 AM CST	F2	W Ulyesses, KS		100

June 2 2 tornadoes

Date	Time	Rating	Where	Path (mi)	Width (yd)	Deaths	Injuries	Damage
June 2	5:30 PM CST	F3	David/SW Chelsea, OK	10.0	400	2	8
June 2	7:00 PM CST	F2	SW Fort Worth, TX

June 3 2 tornadoes

Date	Time	Rating	Where	Path (mi)	Width (yd)	Deaths	Injuries	Damage
June 3	3:50 PM CST	F2	N Crawford, TX	2.4	200
June 3	5:00 PM EST	F2	Westmoreland, NY	5.1		1	3

June 10 5 tornadoes

Date	Time	Rating	Where	Path (mi)	Width (yd)	Deaths	Injuries
June 10	2:00 PM CST	F2	Lake Wakanda/S Willmar/S Kandiyohi Station, MN	14.1	30
June 10	4:00 PM CST	F2	NW Alden, MN
June 10	4:20 PM CST	F2	W Beauford/S Alma City, MN	15.0	150		2
June 10	5:30 PM CST	F2	SE Glendale, MN
June 10	6:55 PM CST	F4	Lyle, MN	6.2	400	1	22

June 22 1 tornado

Date	Time	Rating	Where	Path (mi)	Width (yd)	Deaths	Injuries	Damage
June 22	1:00 PM CST	F2	Burdett, KS

June 24 1 tornado

Date	Time	Rating	Where	Path (mi)	Width (yd)	Deaths	Injuries	Damage
June 24	10:30 PM CST	F3	N Culver/NW Bennington, KS	11.5	150	3	8

July 2 1 tornado

Date	Time	Rating	Where	Path (mi)	Width (yd)	Deaths	Injuries	Damage
July 2	7:30 PM CST	F2	W Carver/Augusta, MN	6.2	50

July 5 1 tornado

Date	Time	Rating	Where	Path (mi)	Width (yd)	Deaths	Injuries	Damage
July 5	2:00 PM CST	F4	Lowry, MN	12.4	200	2	12

July 30 1 tornado

Date	Time	Rating	Where	Path (mi)	Width (yd)	Deaths	Injuries	Damage
July 30	7:00 PM CST	F3	N San Jose, IL	3.0		6	5

August 2 1 tornado

Date	Time	Rating	Where	Path (mi)	Width (yd)	Deaths	Injuries	Damage
August 2	4:00 PM CST	F2	N Letohatchee, AL	1.4	400

August 14 1 tornado

Date	Time	Rating	Where	Path (mi)	Width (yd)	Deaths	Injuries	Damage
August 14	4:00 PM MST	F2	NW Seibert, CO

August 23 1 tornado

Date	Time	Rating	Where	Path (mi)	Width (yd)	Deaths	Injuries	Damage
August 23		F2	N Amsterdam, NY

October 12 1 tornado

Date	Time	Rating	Where	Path (mi)	Width (yd)	Deaths	Injuries	Damage
October 12		F2	Far Hills, NJ		100

October 31 1 tornado

Date	Time	Rating	Where	Path (mi)	Width (yd)	Deaths	Injuries	Damage
October 31	8:00 PM CST	F2	Seminole, AL	4.7	100	1	5

November 8 1 tornado

Date	Time	Rating	Where	Path (mi)	Width (yd)	Deaths	Injuries	Damage
November 8	7:00 PM CST	F2	Fancy Farm/Boaz, KY	10.8	200		11

About the record before 1950

Significant tornadoes only: Grazulis listed tornadoes rated F2 or stronger, and weaker ones that killed somebody. Most tornadoes are weaker than F2, so the list holds a fraction of the tornadoes that happened.
The early years are thin: A tornado is on record only where somebody saw it and wrote it down. The count rises through the 1800s with settlement and newspapers, not with the weather.
Rated from accounts: Grazulis rated each tornado decades later from newspaper reports, Weather Bureau records and local histories, not from a damage survey.
The tracks are reconstructed: Tornado Archive drew each path through the places Grazulis names, most often as a straight line from the first to the last. A track can miss a town it hit, and a tornado with one named place is a point. The counties are today’s.
A separate record: SPC’s database, from 1950, counts every confirmed tornado of any strength. The two are kept apart on every page and never added together.

Nearby

Every year before 1950 1950, the first year of SPC's database The tornado profiles

What this means

Ratings are Grazulis's, read from written accounts of the damage; the rating scale is above. About the record before 1950 says what it holds and what it leaves out.

Sources

Thomas P. Grazulis, Significant Tornadoes 1680-1991 and Significant Tornadoes 1880-1989, as digitized by Tornado Archive (Maas and others, 2024). Public domain. Counties assigned by this site from today’s NWS county lines.