Missouri Tornado History: The State the Joplin EF5 Redefined
Missouri has recorded 2,555 tornadoes and 355 deaths since 1950 — but a single storm rewrote the record. The 2011 Joplin EF5 killed 158 people, the deadliest US tornado since 1947, more than the state’s next 44 deadliest tornadoes combined. One storm accounts for 44% of every tornado death in Missouri’s history.
Missouri sits where Tornado Alley meets Dixie Alley, and the NOAA Storm Prediction Center archive shows it: 2,555 tornadoes since 1950 and 355 deaths, the seventh-most of any state. But no state’s death toll is as lopsided. The May 22, 2011 Joplin EF5 killed 158 people — and its toll alone equals the next 44 deadliest Missouri tornadoes put together.
Strip Joplin out and Missouri’s single deadliest tornado — the 1959 St. Louis F4 — killed 21. That’s the gap Joplin opened. Here’s what 75 years of data show.
Missouri’s deadliest tornadoes
Ranked by fatalities, from the SPC record. Look at the gap between the first row and the second: Joplin’s 158 deaths are more than seven times the next-deadliest. SPC totals run slightly under press tallies because the archive counts confirmed segments only. Note that multi-state tornadoes are credited to their state of origin, so a few storms that struck Missouri — like the 1957 Ruskin Heights tornado, logged under Kansas — appear on our metro pages instead.
| Date | Area | Rating | Deaths |
|---|---|---|---|
| May 22, 2011 | Joplin The deadliest single US tornado since 1947. An EF5 that cut a three-quarter-mile-wide path through the heart of Joplin, killing 158 and injuring more than 1,100. | EF5 | 158 |
| Feb 10, 1959 | St. Louis A February F4 that struck south St. Louis — the deadliest St. Louis-area tornado of the modern era and the single next-deadliest in Missouri after Joplin. | F4 | 21 |
| Mar 21, 1952 | Cooter / Southeast Missouri Part of the catastrophic March 21–22, 1952 outbreak that killed more than 200 across the South. The town of Cooter in Missouri’s Bootheel was hit hardest. | F4 | 17 |
| May 21, 1957 | Missouri (May 1957 outbreak) One of several tornadoes during the late-May 1957 outbreaks that also produced the deadly Ruskin Heights tornado near Kansas City. | F3 | 8 |
| May 4, 2003 | Pierce City / Southwest Missouri An F3 that shredded the historic downtown of Pierce City on a 45-mile path across southwest Missouri. | F3 | 7 |
Joplin, May 22, 2011
On the evening of May 22, 2011, an EF5 up to three-quarters of a mile wide plowed directly through the middle of Joplin, a city of about 50,000 in southwest Missouri. It destroyed a hospital, thousands of homes and businesses, and killed 158 people — the deadliest single tornado in the United States since the 1947 Woodward tornado, and the first to kill more than 100 Americans in the modern warning era.
Joplin didn’t just top Missouri’s list; it dwarfed it. Its 158 deaths account for 44% of every tornado fatality the state has recorded since 1950, and match the combined toll of the 44 next-deadliest Missouri tornadoes. For the full account of that day, see our Joplin tornado deep dive.
Where Missouri ranks nationally
Total tornado fatalities since 1950, from the SPC record. Missouri is seventh — and nearly half of its total came in a single afternoon in 2011.
| Rank | State | Deaths | Tornadoes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Alabama | 677 | 2,597 |
| 2 | Texas | 611 | 9,476 |
| 3 | Mississippi | 500 | 2,731 |
| 4 | Oklahoma | 449 | 4,371 |
| 5 | Tennessee | 425 | 1,392 |
| 6 | Arkansas | 409 | 2,028 |
| 7 | Missouri | 355 | 2,555 |
See the complete national picture in our states with the most tornadoes analysis.
Where Missouri gets hit
Tornadoes touch down across the whole state, but the risk concentrates around the population centers. The two big metros both have long, violent histories of their own: see our St. Louis tornado history — the 1959 F4 above is a St. Louis storm — and our Kansas City tornado history, which covers the 1957 Ruskin Heights tornado that the statewide table above leaves out on a technicality of state-of-origin bookkeeping.
When Missouri’s tornado risk is highest
Missouri’s season is spring-loaded like the Plains: May is the clear peak (673 tornadoes), with April close behind. Monthly counts from the SPC data:
Activity has stayed heavy in the modern era — the busiest years on record are 2006 (96 tornadoes), 2024 (93) and 2008 (91). You can pull the actual conditions for any Missouri tornado day back to 1970 with our historical weather lookup.
Frequently asked questions
What was the worst tornado in Missouri?
The May 22, 2011 Joplin EF5, which killed 158 people — the deadliest single tornado in the United States since 1947. It dominates Missouri’s record: its death toll alone equals the state’s next 44 deadliest tornadoes combined, and accounts for 44% of all 355 Missouri tornado deaths since 1950.
How many F5 tornadoes has Missouri had?
Just one in the NOAA SPC record — the 2011 Joplin EF5. Missouri’s violence is broad rather than F5-heavy: the state has recorded 34 F4s alongside that single F5. Its danger comes from frequency plus the one catastrophic outlier.
How many tornadoes does Missouri get per year?
About 34 a year on average — 2,555 tornadoes from 1950 to 2024. That ranks Missouri among the more tornado-prone states, sitting where Tornado Alley meets Dixie Alley. Its busiest years on record are 2006 (96 tornadoes), 2024 (93) and 2008 (91).
When is tornado season in Missouri?
Spring. May is the clear peak (673 tornadoes in the record), followed by April (504) and June (328). Missouri’s season is spring-loaded like the Plains, though the state also sees a modest secondary uptick in the fall.
Explore the tornado record yourself
Every figure here comes from the NOAA SPC database, which we've made browsable. Map any state, filter by rating, or read the stories behind the record books: