2022 Tornado Activity Expected To Be High: See Ohio Forecast

OHIO — Severe weather and tornadoes have already hit some Ohio regions this year in what is already shaping up to be a dangerous tornado season.

The state — particularly the Ohio Valley — is expected to see a higher-than-average number of tornadoes over the next few months, according to Accuweather.

And right now, we’re in the most active month of the three-month cycle when tornadic activity is the highest, weather officials said. 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 in the U.S. — 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 across the nation 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.

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Through the end of the month, the weather across Ohio will likely be favorable to tornadoes, according to AccuWeather’s longterm forecast.

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 in the U.S. 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.

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