The farther south you live, the longer your tornado season lasts. For safety, it’s time to stop focusing on spring as tornado season and the Great Plains as Tornado Alley. The high tornado count in 2025 has a lot to do with the weather in March, which broke records with 299 reported tornadoes — far exceeding the average of 80 for that month over the past three decades. The first use of the term “Tornado Alley” can be traced to 1952.
Years with fewer tornadoes often have calm periods of a couple of weeks or longer when a sunny high-pressure system is parked over the central U.S. However, the U.S. didn’t really get one of those calm periods in spring 2025. I’m an atmospheric scientist who studies natural hazards. What stands out about 2025 so far isn’t just the number of tornadoes, but how Tornado Alley has encompassed just about everything east of the Rockies, and how tornado season is becoming all year. While the “Wizard of Oz” still conjures up images of Kansas as a tornado-prone area, that state is not the most highly impacted state when it comes to tornadoes. According to the National Climatic Data Center, Texas reports the highest number of tornadoes of any state, although its very large land mass accounts for that status.
The weak La Niña ended and the Gulf waters were closer to normal. Nola Taylor Tillman is a contributing writer for Live Science and Space.com. She loves all things space and astronomy-related, and enjoys the opportunity to learn more.
However, a relatively small percentage of Florida’s tornadoes are considered high intensity. They vary, depending on the criteria used — frequency, intensity, or events per unit area. If your television or radio announces a tornado watch, this means that conditions are favorable for a tornado to form. If a tornado warning is announced, it means a tornado has been sighted tornado web server or indicated by radar. Moisture emitted by a single leaf provides clues to imminent thunderstorms and tornadoes. In the U.S., tornado season usually begins in early March when cold air from Canada clashes with warm, moist air from the Gulf.
‘More people are in harm’s way’: Tornadoes are shifting east of Tornado Alley, forecasters warn
Tornadoes in the Southeastern U.S. are more likely to strike overnight, when people are asleep and cannot quickly protect themselves, which makes these events dramatically more dangerous. The tornado that hit London, Kentucky, struck after 11 p.m. It may come as a surprise that the U.S. has actually seen a decrease in overall U.S. tornado activity over the past several decades, especially for intense tornadoes categorized as EF2 and above. However, those tornado days have been producing more tornadoes.
How a tornado outbreak left 22 dead across central Tennessee
Air Force meteorologists Major Ernest J. Fawbush and Captain Robert C. Miller. They coined the term as part of their study of extreme weather events in an area from Lubbock, Texas, to Colorado and Nebraska. Fawbush and Miller were no strangers to the study of twisters, as they have been credited with making the first successful tornado forecast in 1948 and setting off the first official tornado warning in modern times. Florida’s almost daily thunderstorms spawn a large number of tornadoes, designating it as the state with the with the highest number of tornadoes per square mile.
Scientist Reading the Leaves to Predict Violent Weather
She has a Bachelor’s degree in English and Astrophysics from Agnes Scott college and served as an intern at Sky & Telescope magazine.
A pair of odd twisters spun out from a supercell thunderstorm in Oklahoma Tuesday (April 30). Her work can also be found in Business News Daily and KM World. She holds a bachelor’s degree in communications from Glassboro State College (now known as Rowan University) in New Jersey.
- Tornado Alley is really all of the U.S. east of the Rockies and west of the Appalachians for most of the year.
- Tornados were once ranked by wind speed on the Fujita scale.
- While not as familiar as Tornado Alley, the designation Dixie Alley generally refers to another part of the country that is likely to experience tornadoes — generally the upper Tennessee Valley and Lower Mississippi Valley.
- “More people live in the Mississippi and Tennessee valleys, and more of those families are in vulnerable buildings without basements like mobile homes.”
- Moisture emitted by a single leaf provides clues to imminent thunderstorms and tornadoes.
Why is tornado risk shifting eastward?
Exceptionally warm sea water in the Gulf is also expected to significantly influence severe weather in Southeastern states. According to the National Weather Service (NWS), two EF4-strength tornadoes — indicative of “devastating” damage — ripped through Arkansas on Friday. This was the first time in over 25 years that two EF4-strength tornadoes hit the state in a single day.
Tornado wind and debris cause most of the structural damage suffered, but nearly half of the injuries from such disasters occur after the tornado has left, during rescue work and cleanup. According to the Federal Emergency Management Agency, a third of these injuries come from stepping on nails. As such, it is important to remember to exercise caution even after the danger appears to have passed.
- An average of 800 tornadoes are reported each year, resulting in 80 deaths and 1,500 injuries.
- “This area encompasses much of northern Texas northward through Oklahoma, Kansas, Missouri and parts of Louisiana, Iowa, Nebraska and eastern Colorado,” AccuWeather senior meteorologist Dan Kottlowski said in a statement.
- Many of the deaths have occurred outside Tornado Alley, with at least six fatalities reported in Mississippi and three reported in both Arkansas and Alabama.
- In the U.S., tornado season usually begins in early March when cold air from Canada clashes with warm, moist air from the Gulf.
- April through May is still peak season for the Mississippi Valley, though it is usually on the eastern edge of activity rather than at the epicenter.
Live Science is part of Future US Inc, an international media group and leading digital publisher. After the caver noticed a giant gash across a barren landscape, scientists discovered it was created by a ferocious tornado that no-one knew had occurred. “This area encompasses much of northern Texas northward through Oklahoma, Kansas, Missouri and parts of Louisiana, Iowa, Nebraska and eastern Colorado,” AccuWeather senior meteorologist Dan Kottlowski said in a statement.
Tornado Facts: Causes, Formation & Safety
And 9 p.m., but again, they can occur at any time in the day or night. The region lying between the Rocky and Appalachian Mountains — known informally as Tornado Alley — has the highest number of tornadoes in the United States each year; however, no place is safe. Tornadoes can occur anywhere in the United States, as well as in other countries. In fact, the United Kingdom reports the most tornadoes by land area. An average of 800 tornadoes are reported each year, resulting in 80 deaths and 1,500 injuries.
One of these tornadoes, which devastated the town of Diaz, reached estimated wind speeds of 190 mph (306 kilometers per hour), NWS reports. This shift in tornadoes to the east and earlier in the year is very similar to how scientists expect severe thunderstorms to change as the world warms. However, researchers don’t know whether the overall downward trend in tornadoes is driven by warming or will continue into the future.
The normal seasonal cycle of tornadoes moves inland from near the Gulf Coast in winter to the upper Midwest and Great Plains by summer. Oklahoma, northwest Texas and the Texas panhandle are bracing for a day of extreme weather, including dangerous tornadoes, flooding and thunderstorms. On Friday (March 14) and Saturday, a particularly powerful storm system tore through many Central and Southern states, with 52 confirmed tornadoes whipping up expansive dust storms and wildfires. Nearly 1,100 flights were canceled during the two day period and 150 million people were affected by the extreme weather, AccuWeather reports. Meanwhile, winds topping 80 mph (129 km/h) were reported across the Southern Plains on Friday, with three people killed in car crashes attributed to dust storms in Texas. Many of the deaths have occurred outside Tornado Alley, with at least six fatalities reported in Mississippi and three reported in both Arkansas and Alabama.
It was upgraded to the Enhanced Fujita scale in 2007 and ranges from EF0 to EF5. An EF0 tornado may damage trees but not buildings, with winds ranging up to 85 mph (137 km/h). An EF5 tornado is devastating; winds exceed 200 mph (322 km/h), and buildings can be annihilated. Tornadoes can occur at any time during the year, but they form most frequently in the spring and summer, depending upon your location.
Field campaigns studying how tornadoes form may help us better answer this question. “Our warming atmosphere can hold more moisture, unleashing intense rainfall rates that can trigger dangerous flash flooding,” he said. A string of deadly tornadoes, violent dust storms and fast-moving wildfires ripped across several midwestern and southern U.S. states over the weekend, leaving at least 42 people dead, according to CNN. That’s well to the east of traditional Tornado Alley, typically seen as stretching from Texas through Nebraska, and farther east than normal. April through May is still peak season for the Mississippi Valley, though it is usually on the eastern edge of activity rather than at the epicenter.
