More Twisters, Tornadoes Expected In 2022 Wisconsin Forecast

WISCONSIN — The Badger State is in the danger zone for more twisters and tornadoes expected in the summer of 2022, according to AccuWeather. No tornadoes have been reported yet, but there were five confirmed in one night in 2021.

April is the most active month in of a three-month cycle where tornado activity is its highest, forecasters at AccuWeather said. More weather systems are expected to spin up both inside and out of the traditional "Tornado Alley," including in the Midwest where Wisconsin is considered part of the "moderate" risk zone.

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.

Wisconsin is in an unfavorable spot in AccuWeather's long termforecast: The Badger State sits inside a "moderate" risk zone for severe weather, meaning twisters are more likely in 2022.

In April, Wisconsin's forecast appears to be stable, a monthly forecast showed. Showers are expected on April 20, April 25 and April 29.

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.

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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.