The red dots are tornado locations plotted on top of Saturday's tornado forecast . Fifty years ago this month (April 3 and 4, specifically), a rash of 147 tornadoes struck the United States east of the Mississippi River. Inconsistent radar coverage, slow communications, and lack of meteorological knowledge pertaining to tornado formation meant the tornado warnings were often late or of poor quality. As a result, 335 people lost their lives. Damage, in today’s dollars, reached $5.3 billion. Friday and Saturday, 152 (preliminary number) tornadoes occurred. The death toll? Just four. While those deaths are unspeakable tragedies for the friends and families of the deceased, the fact is that the modern tornado warning system saved more than 300 lives. Fifty years ago, the University of Oklahoma storm chase program (along with subsequent field research programs), which has yielded so much practical knowledge about the development tornadoes, was just two years old. Th...