First Alert Weather In-Depth: Hot start to tornado season

ROCHESTER, N.Y. – Last week News10NBC talked about that hot start to tornado season here in the United States for 2023. We are revisiting that as tornado season continues.

Last week we had a large severe weather outbreak for parts of the Mississippi River Valley, and that added to our tornado numbers for 2023. On March 24 alone, we had over 20 tornadoes recorded. We are closing in on 300 tornados for the year so far, and are likely adding to that number on Friday.

If you were with us last week- 2022 through the month of February was rather low, but March last year was just as active pushing those numbers to over 280 tornadoes. This is thanks to the battle between the warm and cold air as we transition seasons during this time of year. Through March, there have been two other years in which we have had higher tornado totals: 2017 and 2008. They had well over 350 tornadoes to date and the year total was well over 1400 and 1600, which is well above the US annual average of roughly 1225 tornadoes.

The tornado risk for Thursday is rather low, but this storm system will strengthen and increase that risk tomorrow for the central US and the Southern Mississippi River Valley. This also includes some areas that were already hit by severe weather just a few days ago. It doesn’t stop there as the Storm Prediction center is already highlighting the same area under the risk for severe storms tomorrow for another risk of strong storms Tuesday of next week.