Record setting tornado season across the United States and New York State

SYRACUSE, N.Y. — It’s been a very active tornado season across the country, including here at home in New York State. The total number of tornadoes in New York State has already shattered the record and continues to climb. Plus, we may break even more records for the entire United States.

Here’s a look at the total number of tornadoes across the United States over the past 15 years, graphed over time. The red line is 2024, the black line is the average number of tornadoes in a year. Up to this date, 2024 is in 2nd place for the highest number of tornadoes in the past 15 years. In 1st place is the Super Tornado Outbreak of 2011, which is the greatest of all time. Also, notice that 2024 was near the average until after April, then the number of tornadoes spiked.

Looking back even further, since record keeping began in 1950, over the past 74 years the United States annual tornado total has been gradually rising. This is due to better forecasting and radar tools, more damage reports and surveys conducted, plus global warming has made our weather systems stronger and in return spawned more tornadoes. Also, notice that 2024 is in 4th place up to this date with over 1,600 tornadoes so far and rising. By the end of the year, the total may make it into the top 3 or top 2 most active years.

Focusing on just New York State, this year there has been a total of 31 confirmed tornadoes, 23 of which occurred in July alone. Of this total, 13 were EF-0 strength, 16 were EF-1 strength, and 2 were EF-2 strength. This is the most tornadoes we have seen in one year since record keeping began in 1952. Far surpassing the old record of 25 tornadoes in 1992.

Keep in mind, on average New York State usually only gets about 9 tornadoes per year. Most of the tornadoes usually are weak, but this year we managed to have two EF-2 tornadoes which is rare. Many tornadoes that occur in New York State are unconfirmed because the National Weather Service doesn’t send out a crew to survey damage if nobody reports any.

Why was this year so active in terms of tornadoes? This is mainly due to the remnants of Hurricane Beryl that rolled through New York State, which spawned 9 tornadoes. Plus, we had several strong weather systems that whipped up tornadoes. Also, climate change has made our weather systems stronger over time, which is leading to a gradual increase in severe weather.
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