93 years ago. Great Purchase Area Outbreak

Posted from an old Myspace blog. My Spelling and typing wasn't up to par in 07, so there are several grammar, and even a few misspellings.

Also since this 93 years old little is known about this, so really all I had to go by was tornado databases from NWS Memphis, Nashville, and Paducah.

THE MOST DEADLIST TORNADO IN THE JACKSON PURCHASE AREA 67 DEATHS 345 INJURIES (65 IN WESTERN KENTUCKY) lets start with this tornado this was an F-4. To prevent confusion we are going use the original scale this affected FULTON,HICKMAN,GRAVES counties in western Kentucky in our area. This tornado started in Lake County Tennessee in extreme northwestern Tennessee. This storm was the most powerful and deadliest tornado on the day of May 27th 1917 and the deadliest for our area and one of our more deadlier severe weather death tolls. The tornado formed in northwestern tennessee near Tiptonville Tennessee around 4pm then crossed Fulton County about 7 miles WSW of Hickman Ky then with an southwestern to northeastern movement struck the county seat of Hickman directly where it was made a disaster area, and F-4 damage was done as the tornado crossed this area Fulton County and the city of Hickman Ky suffered some of the worst losses of the day F-4 means that several houses and structures were badly damaged and destroyed so Hickman packed a punch from this. Fulton County suffered an heavy death toll of 42 in Fulton County this tornado moved into Hickman County after it went though Fulton County also know that this area particularly Hickman and Fulton Counties were a little bit more populated than today because of the railroads booming in this time period. The tornado crossed Hickman county form the southwest corner about 6 or 7 miles southwest of Clinton Kentucky this tornado destroyed and heavily damaged the southeast city of Clinton Ky where a good deal of the 18 deaths in Hickman county occurred this tornado moved though eastern Hickman county and into western Graves County this storm struck north of the Fancy Farm area to near the small community of Dublin where 5 more people died. All and all 2 in extreme western Tennessee 42 deaths in Fulton County, 18 in Hickman County/Clinton Ky area, and 5 in rural Graves County. This is a F-4 tornado with a 800 mile wide path about as wide as the Christian County Ky tornado of Apr 2nd 2006. This path of the tornado was 50 miles long.

Also a deadly F2 occurred in Carlisle County on this same outbreak as well.


This outbreak was part of a sequence like May 2003 tornado sequence(there was a severe wx event every day, or nearly every day for a long period of time, usually greater than 5 day) that started in Late May and didn't die down till Early June of 1917. A deadly tornado hit Muhlenberg County in Early June 1917 from this same sequence.