By Dennis J. Polley

They usually start in a supercell thunderstorm.  There’s a spinning vortex in the storm’s center.  As the supercell strengthens, the vortex tilts, sucking in warm air and moisture upwards and forcibly pushing cold, dry air downward.  The updraft of warm, moist air causes the vortex to swell, forming a spiraling funnel cloud at its center.  The dry, cool downdraft violently mixes with the upward spiral, squeezing it into a smaller area and increasing the rotational speed.  As pressure and weight from the downdraft increases, the spinning funnel cloud is forced to the ground-tornado touchdown!  Take cover!

St. Louis has been hit by three major tornadoes, in 1896, 1927 and 1959.  All three were very destructive and changed the course of the city.  Keep your eyes on the sky while we revisit these three disasters, all packing enough power to rip apart solid, brick structures.

May 27, 1896, dawned with cloudless blue skies.  It seemed like a nice, spring day in a growing, prosperous St. Louis. The late afternoon saw a strange golden glow in the atmosphere followed by a dead calm that fell over the whole area. The golden glow turned to a sickly green.  With a startling swiftness, towering, dark clouds began to assemble from the north, west and south.  It was approaching 5 p.m. when, although the sun had not set, a frighting darkness quite suddenly cloaked the city.  People stopped in their tracks, scanning skies, expecting a big storm.  Large raindrops began to fall, scattering pedestrians as they ran for shelter.  They had no idea The Great Cyclone of 1896 was about to smash through St. Louis like a mad steamroller.

Winds were already blasting through the streets when the monster made its presence known with a terrifying roar.  The huge tornado began to tear a ten-mile path of destruction through St. Louis.  During its violent 25-minute life, the storm destroyed 311 buildings, badly damaged an additional 7,200 structures and killed 255 people.  As mentioned, these buildings were solid brick, unlike today’s stick-constructed housing.  They were ripped to pieces.  Winds were estimated between 168 and 199 miles per hour making the storm an F4 by today’s standards

The street scene was one of chaos.  Carriage horses ran wild.  Birds were slammed against the brick walls still standing, falling dead to the ground.  Telephone and power poles came down.  Dogs scampered about, terrified.  The air was thick with deadly debris of all kinds.  The screams from the panicked and injured became audible as the winds subsided. 

The tornado concentrated it fury on the southwestern portion of the city. Lindenwood and Clifton Heights were hit hard. The exclusive Lafayette Square neighborhood experienced terrible damage to its houses.  The bandstand and almost all the trees in Lafayette Park were destroyed.  The storm began a downward spiral of the beautiful neighborhood that was finally reversed in the 1970s by urban pioneers that began restoring the Victorian houses back to their former glory.  Compton Heights was badly damaged.  The eastern portion of Ead’s Bridge was torn up.  It’s not clear how many people were injured in the storm.  It was the third most deadly storm in US history. 

St. Louis would rebuild and have its beautiful World’s Fair.  The weather would behave itself for another 31 years.

At 1:00 p.m. on Thursday, September 29, 1927, another roar would be added to the Roaring Twenties.  It was 56 degrees that morning in St. Louis, but the temperature rapidly climbed to 77. From Oklahoma to Indiana, the atmosphere was churning, stirred by an unrelenting, record-breaking heatwave.

This cauldron would spawn at least 12 tornadoes.  Unfortunately, the most powerful of these brutal siblings was an F4 that would grind through St. Louis.  The dark clouds began to rapidly gather around noon.  Observers reported continuous flashes of huge lightning bolts accompanied by fearsome, rolling thunder.  There was brief, eerie calm that folks said was so complete it made their ears pop and their skin tingle.  The atmosphere held an ominous foreboding.

The twister touched down at 1:00 p.m. near Manchester and Kingshighway.  Its path was 12 miles long and 600 yards wide, destroying 200 city blocks.  It leveled the Central High School where over 1,500 students were in class.  78 people died and 550 were injured.  The tornado easily reduced the sturdy brick buildings it rammed to masonry rubble.  Below is an eye-witness account by Dr. Clifford H. Farr, Professor of Botany, Washington U from a 1927 storm study:

The storm’s path of destruction spanned from Fountain Park to Hyde Park, with the West End getting hit very hard.  It did hit Shriner’s Hospital on Kingshighway.

The tornado churned its way to the northeast, eventually crossing the Mississippi River, proving that tornadoes can cross bodies of water.  It did lose strength, but still caused damage on the East Side.

February 9, 1959, was a bad weather night.  Rain poured from the sky causing flash flooding.  To make things more interesting, winds of up to 65 miles per hour were accompanied by hail.  It was only going to get worse.

On February 10, around 2:10 a.m., tornado sirens were blaring.  The tornado touched down in Sherman and then hit Warson Woods as an F2.  While everyone was asleep, it punched through Crestwood, Brentwood, Forest Park, and Central St. Louis before sweeping over the Mississippi.  The West End took a solid hit.  The tornado was part of a larger outbreak, which was rare in the winter.  The St. Louis tornado traveled 27.8 miles on the ground.

 When tornado entered St. Louis, it had grown to be an F4.  It ripped off a portion of the old Arena’s roof and one of its Art Deco towers.  The KTVI TV tower near the corner of Hampton and Oakland was blown down. The storm caused severe damage around Olive and Boyle. That area would rise from the rubble to become the famous Gaslight Square.  The tornado generally destroyed or damaged hundreds of buildings.  10 people died and 170 were injured.

 I was 8 years old when the 1959 tornado hit St. Louis, and I remember it well.  I especially recall the next day being cloudy and very windy.  My Dad and I hopped in the car and saw some of the damage.  The site of the toppled KTVI TV tower, all twisted to pieces, was impressive.  The same could be said for the damaged Arena roof.  Later, you could always tell where the roof had been repaired because the new, interior wood was a lighter shade.  They had to call in someone from Germany for the repairs since no one knew how to do the intricate wood trusses.

“Keep your eyes on skies.”

Sources:  Post-Dispatch, ABC, NBC, CBS internet sites, This is Our St. Louis, Harry M. Hagen, Knight Publishing Co., 1970, Missouri History Museum internet site

(This article was written before the 5/16/25 tornado hit North St. Louis.)