It was widespread and it was deadly, the Easter weekend tornado outbreak that brutalized the Southeast US. Several tornadoes were ultimately responsible for triggering tornado emergency declarations, including the very first of its kind to be issued by the National Weather Service in Charleston, South Carolina.  Throughout the two-day outbreak, a total of 140 tornadoes touched down across 10 states, causing  widespread and locally catastrophic damage. 

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The initial launch date was scheduled for April 10, 1981 and with the first launch of the Space Transportation System (STS), better known as the "space shuttle". The shuttle was humankind's first reusable spacecraft. The orbiter would launch like a rocket and land like a plane.  The STS-1 crew consisted of Commander John W. Young and Pilot Bob Crippen.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Aboard were astronauts James A. Lovell, John L. Swigert and Fred W. Haise.  In the Hollywood film Tom Hanks portrayed Jim Lovell, Bill Paxon played Fred Haise and Kevin Bacon was John Swigert.  Apollo 13, was to be the third lunar landing mission and all went well at the launch from Cape Canaveral, Florida. 

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Tropical Cyclone Olivia bore down on tiny Barrow Island, just off the coast of western Australia in April 1996.  In this system was embedded a smaller-scale circulation within Olivia's eye-wall that produced five extreme 3-second wind gusts, the peak of which was a 253 mph gust on April 10!!

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

They would be known as the Mercury 7, all military test pilots, and carefully selected from a group of 32 candidates to take part in Project Mercury, America’s first manned space program. In January 1959, NASA began the astronaut selection procedure, screening the records of 508 military test pilots and choosing 110 candidates.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

At close to 10:30 in their morning this normally would have been mass chaos and the loss of life would have been staggering.  Helicopter surveillance views of the area showed where              sections of the bridge crossing the river Magra had fallen to the water, buckling a stretch of road behind it.  This route was finished.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It was a three day event that produced significant rainfall that then led to flooding across parts of Eastern Canada. The majority of the damage was in Eastern Ontario and Quebec.  The high water levels blurred the lines between rivers and land.  Following the heavy rains, strong wind gusts downed trees and power lines across many areas of both provinces.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Between April 5-6, this day in weather history, thousands of swallows and swifts that had been migrating from Africa to Europe died in flight due to exceptionally strong winds in Greece, that they had to pass through on their migratory route north during the spring. The Greek wildlife protection group Anima, reported that the birds were being found dead on streets and apartment balconies in the Greek capital city of Athens, on the Aegean Islands and near the seaport of Nauplia in the Peloponnese.  It was a sad total wipeout.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It’s a fairly well-known fact that the Pacific Northwest isn’t in the conversation normally when discussing a “tornado alley”. In today’s event, there were 4 at once which is immediately unusual, but this outbreak was packing a deadly F3 tornado that struck Portland, Oregon, and Vancouver, Washington.  The last time a tornado of F3 strength occurred here was June 3, 1894.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This was the first tornado outbreak in recorded history to produce more than 100 tornadoes within a 24-hour period.  And that would not ever be bested for another 37 years in the US until the 2011 Super Outbreak.  The 1974 outbreak caused widespread and extensive damage that spanned approximately 900 sq mi (2,331 km2) as it travelled a total combined path length of 2,600 mi (4,184 km)..It caused an estimated  $843 million in 1974 USD which roughly translates to $4.58 billion in 2019...and over 2/3s of that was in the US alone.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices