The United States experienced a significant surge in tornado activity in 2024, with 1,910 reported across the country. This marked a substantial increase from previous years, highlighting the unpredictable nature of these violent atmospheric phenomena. Fatalities and economic impact While tornado frequency increased, the death toll from such events remained relatively low compared to historical peaks. In 2023, 86 fatalities were reported due to tornadoes, a notable increase from the 23 deaths in 2022 but far below the 553 lives lost in 2011. Moreover, the economic impact of these storms was substantial, with tornado damage in 2023 amounting to approximately 1.38 billion U.S. dollars, nearly doubling from the previous year. However, this pales in comparison to the record-setting damage of 9.5 billion U.S. dollars in 2011. Comparison to other extreme weather events While tornadoes pose significant risks, hurricanes have historically caused more extensive damage and loss of life in the United States. Hurricane Katrina in 2005 remains the costliest tropical cyclone in recent decades, with damages totaling 200 billion U.S. dollars when adjusted to 2024 values. The impact of such extreme weather events extends beyond immediate destruction, as evidenced by the 1,518 hurricane-related fatalities recorded in 2005. As climate change continues to influence weather patterns, both tornado and hurricane activity may see further shifts in frequency and intensity in the years to come.

The graph illustrates the number of tornado-related fatalities in the United States from 2008 to 2024. The x-axis represents the years, abbreviated from ’08 to ’24, while the y-axis shows the number of deaths each year. Fatalities range from a low of 10 in 2018 to a peak of 553 in 2011. Most years have fatalities between 18 and 126, with notable exceptions in 2020 (76 deaths), 2021 (101 deaths), and 2023 (83 deaths). The data is presented in a bar graph format, highlighting the significant spike in fatalities in 2011 and the overall variability in tornado-related deaths over the 16-year period.

In 2023, tornadoes resulted in approximately 1.38 billion U.S. dollars worth of damage across the United States. This was an increase of almost 95 percent in comparison to the previous year. The North American country's economic damage caused by tornadoes peaked in 2011, at nearly 9.5 billion U.S. dollars. That same year, the number of fatalities due to tornadoes in the United States was also the highest.

National Risk Index Version: March 2023 (1.19.0)A Tornado is a narrow, violently rotating column of air that extends from the base of a thunderstorm to the ground and is visible only if it forms a condensation funnel made up of water droplets, dust and debris. Annualized frequency values for Tornadoes are in units of events per year.The National Risk Index is a dataset and online tool that helps to illustrate the communities most at risk for 18 natural hazards across the United States and territories: Avalanche, Coastal Flooding, Cold Wave, Drought, Earthquake, Hail, Heat Wave, Hurricane, Ice Storm, Landslide, Lightning, Riverine Flooding, Strong Wind, Tornado, Tsunami, Volcanic Activity, Wildfire, and Winter Weather. The National Risk Index provides Risk Index values, scores and ratings based on data for Expected Annual Loss due to natural hazards, Social Vulnerability, and Community Resilience. Separate values, scores and ratings are also provided for Expected Annual Loss, Social Vulnerability, and Community Resilience. For the Risk Index and Expected Annual Loss, values, scores and ratings can be viewed as a composite score for all hazards or individually for each of the 18 hazard types.Sources for Expected Annual Loss data include: Alaska Department of Natural Resources, Arizona State University’s (ASU) Center for Emergency Management and Homeland Security (CEMHS), California Department of Conservation, California Office of Emergency Services California Geological Survey, Colorado Avalanche Information Center, CoreLogic’s Flood Services, Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) National Flood Insurance Program, Humanitarian Data Exchange (HDX), Iowa State University's Iowa Environmental Mesonet, Multi-Resolution Land Characteristics (MLRC) Consortium, National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s (NASA) Cooperative Open Online Landslide Repository (COOLR), National Earthquake Hazards Reduction Program (NEHRP), National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI), National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's National Hurricane Center, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's National Weather Service (NWS), National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Office for Coastal Management, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's National Geophysical Data Center, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Storm Prediction Center, Oregon Department of Geology and Mineral Industries, Pacific Islands Ocean Observing System, Puerto Rico Seismic Network, Smithsonian Institution's Global Volcanism Program, State of Hawaii’s Office of Planning’s Statewide GIS Program, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory (CRREL), U.S. Census Bureau, U.S. Department of Agriculture's (USDA) National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS), U.S. Forest Service's Fire Modeling Institute's Missoula Fire Sciences Lab, U.S. Forest Service's National Avalanche Center (NAC), U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), U.S. Geological Survey's Landslide Hazards Program, United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR), University of Alaska – Fairbanks' Alaska Earthquake Center, University of Nebraska-Lincoln's National Drought Mitigation Center (NDMC), University of Southern California's Tsunami Research Center, and Washington State Department of Natural Resources.Data for Social Vulnerability are provided by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR) Social Vulnerability Index, and data for Community Resilience are provided by University of South Carolina's Hazards and Vulnerability Research Institute’s (HVRI) 2020 Baseline Resilience Indicators for Communities.The source of the boundaries for counties and Census tracts are based on the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2021 TIGER/Line shapefiles. Building value and population exposures for communities are based on FEMA’s Hazus 6.0. Agriculture values are based on the USDA 2017 Census of Agriculture.

The State of the Climate is a collection of periodic summaries recapping climate-related occurrences on both a global and national scale. The State of the Climate Monthly Overview - National Tornadoes provides a summary of tornadic activity in the United States. Tornado occurrences and significant events, including storms and outbreaks, are covered. Regular monthly and annual reports begin in July 2008. Spring "tornado seaso" reports are available for 2006 and 2008. In some months during climatologically inactive periods, the narrative part of this report may be omitted.

In 2023, there were a total of 86 fatalities reported due to tornadoes in the United States, up from 23 fatalities in the previous year. This was the lowest figure reported in the North American country since 2018, when a total of 10 lives were lost due to tornadoes. On the other hand, the highest figure reported in the U.S. since 1995 was in 2011, when tornadoes caused 553 fatalities.

This table contains a summary of the number of tornadoes by year for the United States. The table also provides summary statistics for fatalities, injuries, magnitude, and crop losses by hour. The data should be downloaded and used in a spreadsheet program like Excel, Numbers, or Google Sheets. Data is derived from Tornado data from the National Weather Service.

Context

This data set contains the number of confirmed tornadoes for each state for each year and their responding affects.

Content

Current table includes number of confirmed tornadoes in each state for each year from 1951 to 2019. Future datasets will be related to Fujita/Enhanced Fujita rank, total damage (reported and inflation corrected), and fatalities/injuries. Data is from National Centers for Environmental Information's Storm Events Database.

Inspiration

I am curious about the trend of sever weather occurring in the United States over time. This started with tornadic events but will evolve to severe thunderstorm and hail events as well.

Open-file report; contains unpublished data that has not yet been peer-reviewed.

Tornadoes cause loss of life and damage to property each year in the United States and around the world. The largest impacts come from ‘outbreaks’ consisting of multiple tornadoes closely spaced in time. Here we find an upward trend in the annual mean number of tornadoes per US tornado outbreak for the period 1954–2014. Moreover, the variance of this quantity is increasing more than four times as fast as the mean. The mean and variance of the number of tornadoes per outbreak vary according to Taylor’s power law of fluctuation scaling (TL), with parameters that are consistent with multiplicative growth. Tornado-related atmospheric proxies show similar power-law scaling and multiplicative growth. Path-length-integrated tornado outbreak intensity also follows TL, but with parameters consistent with sampling variability. The observed TL power-law scaling of outbreak severity means that extreme outbreaks are more frequent than would be expected if mean and variance were independent or linearly related.

Tornado TracksThis feature layer, utilizing data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), displays tornadoes in the United States, Puerto Rico and U.S. Virgin Islands between 1950 and 2024. A tornado track shows the route of a tornado. Per NOAA, "A tornado is a narrow, violently rotating column of air that extends from a thunderstorm to the ground. Because wind is invisible, it is hard to see a tornado unless it forms a condensation funnel made up of water droplets, dust and debris. Tornadoes can be among the most violent phenomena of all atmospheric storms we experience. The most destructive tornadoes occur from supercells, which are rotating thunderstorms with a well-defined radar circulation called a mesocyclone. (Supercells can also produce damaging hail, severe non-tornadic winds, frequent lightning, and flash floods.)"EF-5 Tornado Track (May 3, 1999) near Oklahoma City, OklahomaData currency: December 30, 2024Data source: Storm Prediction CenterData modifications: Added fields Calculated Month and DateFor more information: Severe Weather 101 - Tornadoes; NSSL Research: TornadoesSupport documentation: SPC Tornado, Hail, and Wind Database Format SpecificationFor feedback, please contact: ArcGIScomNationalMaps@esri.comNational Oceanic and Atmospheric AdministrationPer NOAA, its mission is "To understand and predict changes in climate, weather, ocean, and coasts, to share that knowledge and information with others, and to conserve and manage coastal and marine ecosystems and resources."

Tornadoes, sometimes called twisters, are high-speed columns of rotating air connecting a thunderstorm to the ground. These storms vary greatly in size and strength, and are difficult for scientists to predict. The average tornado damage path is about one and a half to three kilometers (one to two miles) with a width of 45 meters (50 yards); however, some paths can stretch more than 160 kilometers (100 miles) and have widths greater than three kilometers (two miles).

Tornado paths are so small and unpredictable, local National Weather Service (NWS) forecast offices usually only have about 14 minutes to alert residents with a tornado warning before the storm reaches them. Because of this, the NWS issues tornado watches over a large area to warn residents a tornado could form in their vicinity hours before one can touch the ground.

Tornadoes only form when a thunderstorm has a certain combination of winds. As winds at varying speeds and directions cause rising air to start spinning, warmer air continues to rise and cooler air begins to sink to the ground. Once there are enough rising and sinking gusts of wind, the air near the ground begins to rotate. The rotating air throughout the tornado eventually speeds up to spin around one axis and begins to move horizontally across the land. Most tornadoes originate from supercell thunderstorms in which there are drastic differences in air temperatures and wind speeds, but not all supercell thunderstorms produce tornadoes.

Tornadoes occur in many parts of the world, including Australia, Europe, Africa, South America, and Asia; however, about 75 percent of the world’s known tornadoes have formed in the United States. About 1,200 tornadoes hit the U.S. every year. Although tornado season refers to the time of year when the United States sees the most tornadoes, peak tornado season varies across regions of the U.S. The southern Plains experience peak tornado season from May to early June, the Gulf coast from March to April, and the northern Plains and upper Midwest see the most tornadoes in either June or July. Even though there are times of the year when tornadoes are most prominent, they can occur at any time given the right weather conditions.

To assess the wind speeds of a tornado, the NWS implemented the Enhanced Fujita Scale (EF Scale), a set of wind estimates based on the intensity of damage from structures in the path of the storm. Because buildings have varying structural integrity, the EF Scale incorporates 28 damage indicators, such as building type (for example, barn, school, motel, or shopping mall), structures (for example, gas station canopy, mobile home, or transmission line tower) and trees (for example, hardwood or softwood). These damage indicators are then given a damage rating between 1 and 8, in which 1 = no damage and 8 = completely destroyed. From the values given for each damage indicator, the NWS derives an EF number between 0 and 5 that estimates the overall intensity of the tornado.

EF-0: Gale winds with speeds between 105 and 137 kmph (65-85 mph) EF-1: Moderate winds with speeds between 138 and 177 kmph (86-110 mph) EF-2: Significant winds with speeds between 178 and 217 kmph (111-135 mph) EF-3: Severe winds with speeds between 218 and 266 kmph (136-165 mph) EF-4: Devastating winds with speeds between 267 and 322 kmph (166-200 mph) EF-5: Incredible winds with speeds over 322 kmph (200 mph)

Do you have tornadoes where you live? Learn How to Stay Safe from Tornadoes!

This map layer features U.S. tornado track data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration between 1980 and 2022. This very large dataset has been filtered to visualize large and violent tornado tracks from EF-3 to EF-5 tornadoes that occurred between 2000 and 2017.

Want to learn more about tornadoes? Check out Forces of Nature.

NetCDF files containing gridded annual probability of tornadoes for present day and the future climate. The fields are multi model means of 15 regional climate model simulations (CORDEX).

Detailed Average fees per user (AFPU) metrics and analytics for Tornado Cash, including historical data and trends.

On the evening of 28 March 2000, two tornados struck Fort Worth, Arlington, and Grand Prairie, Texas. The Fort Worth Tornado touched down west of the city, and moved through the downtown area. The tornado was rated an F2 on the Fujita scale at its strongest point. The Arlington tornado started as an F3, and varied from F2 to F0 throughout its 6.5 mile track. The damages from these tornados was estimated at $450 million in the Fort Worth area. 5 F2's, and 8 F0-F1's. While southern Louisiana's annual average for tornados is 13 (1950-1995), it hosted 12 tornados on 1-2 January. All of the tornados were indicated by WSR-88D radars in Lake Charles and Fort Polk,

Louisiana. The average lead time was an impressive 24 minutes. There was one fatality in Texas, but, given the severity of the outbreak and the fact that it happened overnight, it is fortunate that there were not more people injured or killed.

For more information, see: http://data.eol.ucar.edu/codiac/projs?COMET_CASE_028

On 1-2 January 1999, southeast Texas and southwest Louisiana experienced a major tornado outbreak which featured 1 F3, 5 F2's, and 8 F0-F1's. While southern Louisiana's annual average for tornados is 13 (1950-1995), it hosted 12 tornados on 1-2 January. All of the tornados were indicated by WSR-88D radars in Lake Charles and Fort Polk, Louisiana. The average lead time was an impressive 24 minutes. There was one fatality in Texas, but, given the severity of the outbreak and the fact that it happened overnight, it is fortunate that there were not more people injured or killed.

For more information, see: http://data.eol.ucar.edu/codiac/projs?COMET_CASE_027

This is a running database of all tornadoes that have occurred in the Huntsville Forecast Area from 1950 through 2024. This database will be update each year in January to include previous year's tornado data. The database incorporates charts for quick analysis and filters to help sort through tornado intensity as well as monthly/yearly tornado occurrences. Source Data is from the official NCDC Storm Event Database and research conducted by Thomas P. Grazulis. A few tornadoes prior to 1970 were extrapolated from the original description in the Storm Event Publications from NCDC.

A database of verified tornado tracks across Canada has been created covering the 30-year period from 1980 to 2009. The tornado data have undergone a number of quality control checks and represent the most current knowledge of past tornado events over the period. However, updates may be made to the database as new or more accurate information becomes available. The data have been converted to a geo-referenced mapping file that can be viewed and manipulated using GIS software.

Detailed Average revenue per user (ARPU) metrics and analytics for Tornado Cash, including historical data and trends.

This dataset provides information about the number of properties, residents, and average property values for Coal River Road cross streets in Tornado, WV.