The number of deaths per year caused by tornadoes has generally been much less in the last quarter of the twentieth century than it was previously. In particular, the number of deaths in the ‘‘big years’’ has dropped dramatically. From 1975 to 2000, only twice did as many as 100 tornado deaths occur in a year (1984 and 1998). In contrast, that number occurred 54 times from 1875 to 1974, including every year from 1916 through 1927. The 1910s through the middle 1930s, in fact, represent a period of very high fatalities, as shown by the smoothed curve. From 1912 to 1936, the mean annual death toll was 260, almost 5 times as many as in 1976–2000, when the mean was 54. The medians for the two periods were 179 and 44, respectively, indicating that the means are somewhat unrepresentative, having been influenced by a few extreme events on the high end.