2022 Tornado Activity Expected To Be High: See Illinois Forecast

ILLINOIS — More than a dozen people have already been killed in tornadoes this year in the U.S., and 76 Americans died in the deadly storms last year, including six people killed at an Illinois Amazon warehouse in December and an unborn baby killed in Woodridge last June. And so far this spring, it's already shaping up to be an active 2022 tornado season.

Earlier this week, the National Weather Service warned of possible tornadoes as storms hit the Chicago area, and right now, we’re in the most active month of the three-month cycle when tornadic activity is the highest, according to AccuWeather.

The private weather company expects active weather systems to not only spin up more twisters and severe storms than in previous years, but also in areas outside the traditional “Tornado Alley.”

Overall, AccuWeather forecasts a 2022 tornado season at least as active and potentially more violent than in 2021. Last year, there were 1,376 confirmed tornados — an increase of 301 from 2020, according to preliminary data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Tornados killed 100 people in 2021, more than in any year since 2011, NOAA data shows.

The remainder of April should be “very active” for tornadoes, AccuWeather Senior Meteorologist Paul Pastelok said. The weather company’s meteorologists forecast between 200 and 275 tornadoes in April, an increase from 73 confirmed tornadoes in 2021. About 155 tornadoes are spawned in a typical April, according to the Storm Prediction Center.

Through the end of the month, the weather in Illinois may be favorable for tornadoes, according to AccuWeather’s long term forecast.

"During this period, the higher risk of severe weather is predicted to occur across the Midwest, Mississippi Valley, Tennessee Valley and Ohio Valley, especially in April and May, instead of being focused on the traditional Tornado Alley" of Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas and Nebraska, AccuWeather said.

Much of Illinois falls under a higher risk of severe weather, with the very northern tip of the state falling under "moderate" risk for severe storms.

Tornadoes form when warm, humid air collides with cold, dry air during thunderstorms. These conditions cause spinning within thunderclouds, and the spinning currents can drop down from a cloud and become a twister.

The 2022 tornado season is off to an active, deadly start, with at least 210 confirmed twisters so far. They include an Iowa tornado that killed seven people in early March. It was an EF4 tornado, the second-most intense tornado on the Enhanced Fujita Scale.

If the forecast bears out, tornado activity will slow in May. AccuWeather forecasts between 140 and 190 tornadoes to be spawned during the month, below both the confirmed storm total of 289 in 2021 and the monthly average of 276 confirmed storms, according to NOAA data.

There may be fewer tornadoes over a larger area of the country in May, but severe storms are expected to be concentrated in the Midwest, and perhaps “an event or two in the mid-Atlantic and Northeast,” Pastelok said.

Tornadoes have become more frequent in large swaths of the Midwest and Southeast in recent years, according to published research, and AccuWeather expects the trend to continue this year, especially in the Mississippi and Tennessee valleys.

Illinois averages about 32 tornadoes per year between March and May, with the most tornadoes — an average of 16 per year — in May. Statewide, nearly 80 percent of all tornadoes occur between April 1 and June 30.

On June 20, 2021, an EF-3 tornado injured a woman and claimed the life of her unborn baby. It also damaged hundreds of homes and businesses, and destroyed 29 houses.

• Related: Did Climate Change Fuel Deadly Twister? Probably, Scientists Say.

AccuWeather said the shift eastward already is occurring, affected both by continued drought conditions in the Southwest and a change in the jetstream, lowering the risk in Tornado Alley, a wide swath extending north from the Texas and Louisiana Gulf Coasts to the Dakotas. But that doesn’t mean tornadoes won’t happen in these states, the forecast emphasized.