Hurricane Katrina also caused a tornado outbreak

Hurricane Katrina is well known for devastating New Orleans. As it made landfall on August 29, 2005, it also wreaked havoc along the coastline to the east, ultimately becoming the most damaging hurricane in U.S. history. Sadly, Katrina’s infamous statistics include causing more deaths than any hurricane since 1928.

Behind the main story of Katrina, it produced a lot of tornadoes as well. The storm presently ranks in at sixth-most twisters for a tropical cyclone hitting the United States during the modern record, according to the Tornado Project.

Katrina’s 59 tornadoes touched down across nine states as the storm moved from the Gulf coast up toward the Ohio Valley.

Katrina moves inland with bands of storms on the east side producing occasional tornadoes. In this snap, metro Atlanta is under a tornado warning. (IEM VTEC)

Georgia tops the list at 18 Katrina-induced tornadoes, followed by Mississippi with 11, and Alabama with 10. A secondary area of concentrated tornado activity occurred as the system moved further north and initiated storms across the Mid-Atlantic before its remnants moved away from the country.

As with most tropical systems, the vast majority of the tornadoes recorded were weak. In this case, there were 30 F0s and 23 F1s. Six strong tornadoes, all F2s, touched down as well. One was responsible for a death in western Georgia. A tornado that damaged dozens of homes near Roopville took a man’s life.

East of Roopville, Georgia. This is the site of an F2 tornado that caused one death. (NWS Peachtree City)

Here’s a breakdown of tornadoes by day as Katrina moved along:

Aug 26 – 1 (Florida)
Aug 28 – 4 (Alabama, Florida)
Aug 29 – 40 (Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Mississippi)
Aug 30 – 13 (Maryland, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia)
Aug 31 – 1 (Pennsylvania)

Over half of the tornadoes had path lengths (exaggerated in the graphic above) of one mile or less. These were the top five lengthiest:

13 miles – Along the track in Mississippi
11 miles – EF0 in northeast Georgia
7 miles – Southern Pennsylvania
6 miles – South-central Alabama
5.5 miles – Deadly tornado near Roopville, Georgia